Devouring Portugal Edible bacalhau “stones” by the renowned chef José Avillez at Belcanto, in Lisbon. Opposite: priests walking by the south door of the city’s Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, one of the most distinctive Gothic buildings in Portugal This resilient, independent, often overlooked country has come into its own – particularly in the kitchen, where talented chefs are creating a food scene that might be one of the best in Europe BY Tom Parker Bowles PHOTOGRAPHY BY Frederico Martins
It’s said of Portugal, everything starts with the sea. History, culture, empire, nostalgia and, of course, lunch, all tumbled together in those mighty Atlantic currents. With 1,794 kilometres of coastline and a neighbour, Spain, with whom relations were never exactly cordial, it’s little wonder that all eyes are fixed eternally west. Away from Europe, to the place, in the words of Luís de Camões, that great and most revered of Portuguese poets, onde a terra se acaba e o mar começa (where the land ends and the sea begins). Celts, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Swabians and Moors all settled or invaded this land. And it was the Portuguese, masters of exploration, conquerors of the ocean, who, in the age of discovery, set sail for Madeira and the Azores, the coast of Africa and the route to India. The country may be small, but its legacy is mighty. Over three centuries later, another fine Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa, master of melodious melancholy, was equally obsessed. “The sea with an end can be Greek or Roman,” he sighed. “The endless sea is Portuguese.” And it’s not just the sea that swirls through Portugal’s veins, but saudade – the nostalgic “presence of absence” – that flows rather more slowly. Because here is a land with everything: centuries of culture and learning; a liberal, permissive society; clement climate; and some of the finest natural produce on Earth. Yet the Portuguese seem unwilling to sing too loudly of their blessings, to revel in what they have. While Spain basks in sun, Portugal mopes modestly in shade. “Saudade is a national characteristic,” says Raquel Prates, an actress and the owner of multibrand 39a Concept Store (39a.pt). “Even when you have everything, you don’t. Everyone has it. You can find it in the music, fado [a sort of traditional Portuguese blues], and smell it in the air.” But while saudade is similar to nostalgia, it’s more than that: it’s the pang of “missingness” soaked in a romantic conservatism that constantly yearns for the past. Portugal wears it like a mourning cloak. Yet Lisbon, Portugal’s capital, seems anything but melancholic. Oh, the irony. In fact, it’s a city that suffuses the spirit with giddy joy, scrawling an impromptu grin across one’s face. Drenched in winter sun, the skies a startling azure, the crisp, sea-salted breeze is scented with roasting chestnuts, thick with the clink of glasses and the merry ting-ting of ever-present trams. I don’t think I’ve ever fallen for a city so fast, so hard. I guzzle the view from the top of Bairro Alto Hotel (bairroalto hotel.com), a lemon-hued beauty that straddles bohemian Bairro and ever-fizzing Chiado. It passes over terracotta roofs and pulchritudinous pastels of blue and pink, out to the glimmering Rio Tejo, with its lobster-red 25 de Abril suspension bridge (named after the Carnation Revolution of 1974), and on to the city of Almada. Ferries chug from one side to the other while cargo boats wend their way down to the sea. My senses abuzz, CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 87
