When you sign up for a Portuguese cooking experience at Cooking Lisbon, you can choose between a traditional Portuguese food class, or a Michelin secrets cooking class. When we prepare typical dishes, we follow recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation, and which make the repository of Portugal’s most iconic foods. But when we approach things like a Michelin starred restaurant would, we focus more on transforming ingredients in original ways and platting them in spectacular ways.
As devote food lovers, we believe Portuguese food is great in its traditional manner, but we’re also big fans of modern and creative approaches to our cuisine, such as those by some of the most celebrated chefs who have in some cases been highlighted by the Michelin guide.
As of 2022, there are 33 Michelin starred restaurants across Portugal, amounting to a total of 40 stars. Today we focus on the Michelin star dining experiences which you can have in and around Lisbon, and which include vanguard contemporary Portuguese food, as well as global cuisines, by local and international chefs who have decided to open the doors to their kitchens in the Portuguese capital.
These are all the restaurants with Michelin stars in Lisbon, Cascais and Sintra:
Double Michelin starred restaurants in Lisbon
Alma
Hands down one of Portugal’s most popular chefs, Henrique Sá Pessoa is the creative mastermind of double Michelin-starred Alma, but also a celebrity chef known for his cooking shows on TV. The name of Sá Pessoa’s restaurant in Lisbon translates as “soul”, and there’s no arguing that the food here has a lot of essence and personality. The foundations of Alma’s menu are rooted in traditional Portuguese cooking, while embracing influences of the wider world. Chef Henrique Sá Pessoa is a reference of Portuguese traditional cooking (as we can see on his TV show Comtradição) but doesn’t shy away from incorporating flavors and ingredient combinations that have been inspired by his travels, namely to Asia.
In the chef’s own words “at Alma we serve much more than a meal: we serve emotions, identity, knowledge.” When you make a booking to dine at Alma, you can choose dishes a la carte, or select one of their tasting menus. Costa a Costa is a five dish fish and seafood tasting menu, which pays tribute to Portugal’s relationship with the ocean, only making use of sustainable catches. On the other hand, Alma tasting menu is a sort of best of chef Henrique Sá Pessoa, and it may be a very good introduction to his dishes if you’ve never had the luck to try his food. If you prefer to explore Alma’s menu, make your own selection of dishes. Get acquainted with Portuguese fine dining in a relaxed and distinguished atmosphere.
🍴 Alma, by chef Henrique Sá Pessoa
📷 "Cobblestreet" salted cod, samos, onion purée, egg yolk
📍Rua Anchieta 15, 1200-224 Lisbon
Belcanto
Chef José Avillez has sometimes been referred to as “the father of Portuguese contemporary cooking”. Along with Henrique Sá Pessoa above, he is the only Lisbon based chef with two Michelin stars. Labels aside, there’s no doubt that Avillez has done a lot to popularize modern and fine dining interpretations of Portuguese cooking not only inside our country, but also internationally. In fact, during the summer of 2022, Avillez’s restaurant Tasca by José Avillez in Dubai has just won its first Michelin star as well. Even though the chef has about a dozen different restaurants in Lisbon, ranging from more affordable eateries to more upscale establishments, Belcanto is the award-winning place where Avillez presents his most refined dishes, and which has also been highlighted as one “of The World's 50 Best Restaurants”.
Belcanto’s food is avant-garde, creative and even fun. In fact, the names of the dishes translate that spirit, taking quintessential Portuguese ingredients and transforming them in such imaginative ways. What starts in Avillez’s mind as a simple egg, ends up being served on the plate as “the garden of the goose that laid the golden eggs”, featuring egg, crunchy bread and mushrooms in a remarkable combination of flavors and textures. Beside the revisited Portuguese cuisine dishes you can try a Belcanto a la carte, the restaurant also offers three tasting menus including The Chef’s Table Menu, with special and unique moments that are not on the a la carte menu. Besides the incredible food, choosing this menu gives you the opportunity to sit at the exclusive chef’s table inside Belcanto’s kitchen, to see magic happen from the first row.
🍴 Belcanto, by chef José Avillez
📷 Skate Jackson Pollock
📍Rua Serpa Pinto 10A, 1200-026 Lisbon
Restaurants with one Michelin star in Lisbon
CURA
Even though chef Pedro Pena Bastos is only in his early 30s, his Michelin star has been a long time coming and has finally been awarded to him and his restaurant CURA in 2022. After being responsible for the restaurant at the Esporão winery in the Alentejo, and delighting diners for a couple of years at one common table only Ceia in Lisbon, Pena Bastos opened CURA at the Four Seasons Hotel little before the pandemic hit. Amidst all the social chaos which had a massive impact in the hospitality industry, chef Pena Bastos and the team at CURA still managed to pull through and the chef had the chance to shine like never before!
The Portuguese terms “cura” comes from curatorship, and this is what Pena Bastos has set out to do with the very best Portuguese ingredients (some of them, like the olives, from his family’s very own farm!), which he highlights in four different tasting menus, including a vegetarian one called Raízes (Portuguese for roots). Chef Pedro Pena Bastos’ food is extremely elegant and, in spite of being very technical, it’s also uncomplicated and approachable, letting the products speak for themselves. CURA at the Four Seasons Hotel has an open kitchen, so taking a sneak peek into the cooking and plating process has the potential to make your dining experience even more delightful.
🍴 CURA, by chef Pedro Pena Bastos
📷 squid | hazelnut | bergamot | roasted seaweed butter | Ossetra caviar
📍Four Seasons Hotel, Rua Rodrigo da Fonseca 88, 1070-051 Lisbon
Eleven
At Eleven, chef Joachim Koerper’s Mediterranean cuisine is enhanced by the incredible views of Lisbon you can enjoy from the restaurant. Sitting atop Eduardo XVII park in central Lisbon, Eleven serves modern and creative dishes elegantly crafted with locally grown ingredients of the highest quality. The German chef’s philosophy is rooted in keeping things simple, transforming southern European ingredients (mostly from Portugal, but also from Spain and Italy) in “luminous and elegant” ways. Eleven’s delivery is flawless and this was actually the very first restaurant in Lisbon to ever receive a Michelin star, raising the standards and changing the local gastronomic scene forever!
Besides business lunches and a la carte dishes, Eleven serves six themed tasting menus, including the most recent Joachim Koerper’s 50 Years of Career Menu, which is a voyage through five decades and the chef’s trajectory in kitchens from Germany, Switzerland, France and Singapore to finally Portugal. As the chef puts it “this menu is a voyage through that life route, with culinary creations, based on the places that meant the most to me.”
🍴 Eleven, by chef Joachim Koerper
🎥 Overview of Joachim Loerper’s 50 years of career menu
📍Rua Marquês Fronteira Jardim Amália Rodrigues, Parque Eduardo VII, 1070-051 Lisbon
Fifty Seconds
The famous Vasco de Gama tower houses Fifty Seconds on its panoramic top level, as part of the Myriad by SANA Hotel. Visiting this restaurant is a feast for the senses - it starts with the visuals (thanks to the stunning views to the south bank of Lisbon and urban Parque das Nações, but also because of the impeccable plating of the dishes), and it carries on inspiring your scent and palate.
Across his several restaurants, Spanish chef Martín Berasategui has gathered a total of twelve Michelin stars, including three at his namesake restaurant in San Sebastián, and the one Fifty Seconds in Lisbon was awarded not even a year after its opening. This unique dining experience at 120m of height can be approached by selecting from the a la carte menu, or opting for a seven or ten course menu, prepared by Berasategui’s Portuguese kitchen team. Chef Martín Berasategui’s signature cuisine translates in luxurious cooking with exotic touches, prepared in a meticulous way. Expect “a combination of cosmopolitan and sophisticated flavors from around the world that lead us towards unknown sensations.”
🍴 Fifty Seconds, by chef Martín Berasategui
📷 Fifty Second’s dining room, overlooking the Tagus river
📍Rua Cais das Naus Lote 2.21.01, 1990-173 Lisbon
Loco
Loco’s kitchen is larger than the restaurant’s actual dining space, and that’s because big things happen there! Not to be mistaken with the Spanish word for crazy, the restaurant’s name comes from Latin “in loco” and it means “to be there”, referring to the open kitchen which allows you to be present and looking and what’s happening before the food arrives to your plate, at what is one of Lisbon’s very best fine-dining experiences. Chef Alenxandre Silva’s rise to fame happened back in 2012, when he won the TV competition Top Chef in Portugal. From then onwards, the chef’s career hasn’t stopped evolving, and the numerous awards and accolades he’s gathered (including the first Michelin star for Loco in 2018) are a proof of that!
Loco’s Portuguese cuisine is up to date, sophisticated and experimental, working with local organic ingredients during what chef Alexandre Silva refers to as “micro seasons”, when the freshness of the products is at its peak. The best raw elements allied with innovative techniques are compiled in no more no less than a seventeen moments tasting menu inspired by the tradition of Portuguese flavors. When it comes to drinks, Loco focuses exclusively on Portuguese wines which aren’t at all well known, allowing small producers with amazing quality to be showcased at this stellar Lisbon restaurant in the neighborhood of Estrela.
🍴 Loco, by chef Alexandre Silva
📷 Chef Alexandre Silva’s interpretation of a pastel de bacalhau codfish cake
📍Rua Navegantes nº53-B, 1200-731 Lisbon
🌐 www.loco.pt/en
EPUR
No matter where in the world we may be, the Michelin guide (and the world of gastronomy in general) loves to put the spotlight on French haute cuisine. Even though this restaurant doesn’t focus on traditional French cuisine, it makes very good use of French fine dining techniques. At EPUR, chef Vincent Farges delights diners with a single surprise menu, which appears simple at a first glance but is highly creative. Chef Farges’ cooking breathes inspiration from cuisines a little all over the world, most pronouncedly French, Portuguese and Asian.
In chef Vincent Farges own words “At 40’s you know yourself, you know what your culinary identity is. Simple but technically sophisticated.” EPUR is deliberately minimalist on the plate, straightforward and exuberant all at once, respecting the character of the individual ingredients, yet combining them in exquisite ways that aren’t only meant to please the taste buds, but also to evoke emotions. If you’re a fan of pure, natural and fresh food prepared in a gourmet way, EPUR has what it takes to blow you away!
🍴 EPUR, by chef Vincent Farges
📷 stripped back decor at EPUR restaurant in the Chiado district
📍Largo da Academia Nacional de Belas Artes 14, 1200-289 Lisboa
100 Maneiras
If there’s a Michelin starred chef known by the general public in Portugal that is Ljubomir Stanisic. Known for his roughness and ease to say curse words at the Portuguese version of TV show Hell’s Kitchen, more than for his cuisine, Stanisic is indeed an icon of Portuguese pop culture, often compared with Gordom Ramsay in terms of character, but he is also nonetheless an exemplary chef.
100 Maneiras is chef Ljubomir Stanisic restaurant in Bairro Alto, and the name can be translated as either “one hundred ways” or “without manners” - up to you to decide which one fits best after eating here. At 100 Maneiras the Bosnian identity of the chef comes through in the food, in the decor and even the mood that is set in the restaurant, for instance inside the bathrooms, where they play the speeches of dictators over loudspeakers. 100 Maneiras’ goal is to tell stories via its food, which is incredibly well crafted with an irreverent edge. Stanisic’s dishes are creative and obscure, and literally bring to the table elements of the former Yugoslavia where the chef was a little boy during the war before his family fled to Portugal, where his cooking career ended up taking him from the kitchen to the TV. 100 Maneiras’ theatrical dishes do indeed tell a story, which is very well narrated by the chef and his team, but are also delightfully cooked and worth it at an individual level, which goes to say that the ambiance and purposeful drama do not outshine the actual food!
🍴 100 Maneiras, by chef Ljubomir Stanisic
📷 “Welcome to Bosnia”
📍Rua do Teixeira 39, 1200-459 Lisbon
Eneko Lisboa
Eneko Lisboa is the Portuguese capital address of a chain of restaurants by chef Eneko Atxa, who also impresses fine dining lovers in his native Bilbao, Larrabetzu, London and Tokyo. Chef Atxa’s is very much into gastronomic theatrics, here enhanced by the industrial decor at the former Alcântara Café, where the heavily ornate lounge’s decor includes mirrors and red velvet grapes which separate the backstage and the dining room where the audience takes a sit to be wowed.
Eneko Lisboa is all about Basque fine dining, the chef’s trademark cuisine, with local hints. As chef Eneko Atka owns several restaurants, the day to day at Eneko Lisboa is managed by chef Lucas Bernardes, from Brazil, who has previously worked with Atxa at his 3 Michelin star restaurant Azurmendi, in Spain. Come to Eneko Lisboa to taste Basque cuisine in its most modern interpretation, prepared with the highest quality ingredients of the season.
🍴 Eneko Lisboa, by chef Eneko Atxa Azurmendi
📷 Suckling pig with gnocchi, Idiazabal cheese and truffle pesto
📍Rua Maria Luísa Holstein 15, 1300-388 Lisbon
Feitoria
Chef João Rodrigues, also responsible for the incredibly interesting food and ethnographic explorations of Portugal documented as Projecto Matéria, was Feitoria’s executive chef until 2022. In fact, it was under Rodrigues’ that Feitoria won its first Michelin star. As of the spring of 2022, André Cruz has stepped up to creatively direct Feitoria, which he has been a part of since 2009, when he joined at just 21 years of age, eventually becoming João Rodrigues’ sous chef.
Even though Feitoria’s cuisine is international, Portuguese products are the stars of the show. The influences of corners of the world where the Portuguese have historically had a presence are very notable across the list of dishes, which you can taste as a part of a seven or nine course menu, also available in vegetarian versions. Now with chef André Cruz there are also hints of South American cuisine at Feitoria, which came about as a result of the chef’s stay at restaurants Gustu by chef Kamilla Seider in Bolivia, and Boragó by chef Rodolfo Guzmán in Chile. Feitoria’s food is chic, focuses on the seasonality of the ingredients and, over all, tastes like the world!
🍴 Feitoria, by chef André Cruz
📷 André Cruz, Feitoria’s new chef since the summer of 2022
📍Altis Belém Hotel & Spa, Doca do Bom Sucesso, 1400-038 Lisbon
Restaurants near Lisbon with one Michelin star - Cascais and Sintra
Fortaleza do Guincho
The splendid view of the Atlantic ocean which you can enjoy once you sit down at the restaurant Fortaleza do Guincho (housed at the hotel by the same name, which is a part of the international chain Relais & Chateaux) is only the first thing that will dazzle you here! Chef Gil Fernandes took over Fortaleza do Guincho’s gastronomic experience, after chef Miguel Rocha Vieira had already brought in a Michelin star home. Fortaleza do Guincho got his Michelin star back in 2001 and has rightfully held on to it until now.
If there’s no doubt that the nearby Atlantic influences Fortaleza do Guincho’s kitchen, it’s also a fact that chef Gil Fernandes embodies the perfect balance of a chef who has gained recognition by his extraordinary and innovative cuisine, staying true to his origins - he even has a dish called Grandma São’s Hencoop, a tribute to his grandmother in the shape of a wild pigeon stuffed egg. Sustainability is also one of the main focuses of chef Fernandes’ philosophy, who is an avid forger and will make very good use of ingredients that spontaneously grow nearby Fortleza do Guincho, such as wild greens and algae.
🍴 Fortaleza do Guincho, by chef Gil Fernandes
📷 The color blue dominates Fortaleza do Guincho’s dining room decor, as well as the view towards the Atlantic ocean
📍Estrada do Guincho 2413, 2750-642 Cascais
LAB by Sergi Arola
Nestled in the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park, LAB by Sergi Arola is a refuge for the senses and has the potential to bring forth strong gastronomic stimulated emotions. This 22 seat restaurant which, just like Midori below, is a part of the high-end Penha Longa Resort, serves creative fare rooted in Mediterranean cuisine.
Artsy and edgy, LAB stands out at first because of its bold decor and intense green surroundings, but finally wins you over because of Arola’s flavor combinations delivered in ingenious ways. When Arola is not around, resident chef Vladimir Veiga takes over, ensuring the perfect execution of contemporary cuisine with seasonal ingredients and a Portuguese touch. Besides the a la carte selection, at LAB you can also enjoy tasting menus which showcase the best of the restaurant’s innovative cooking. As LAB’s team puts it, this is “a true laboratory of fine dining”, and we wouldn’t expect any less from a chef who was once upon a time mentored by chef Ferran Adriá.
🍴 LAB, by chef Sergi Arola
📷 LAB’s dining room with views of Sintra’s forest
📍Estr. da Lagoa Azul, 2714-511 Montelavar
Midori
Twenty five year old Midori is the oldest Japanese restaurant in Portugal and, to this day, if we’re to judge by the Michelin guide, the very best as well! Now-a-days, chef Pedro Almeida is in charge of Midori’s kitchen, which serves kaiseki style Japanese cuisine, which is a multi-course menu of small Japanese gourmet dishes. Following the traditional philosophy of kaiseki, Midori focuses on the freshest seasonal ingredients, meticulous preparation and eye-catching artistic plating.
In an intimate setting, a meal at Midori will allow you to taste Japanese food with a clear Portuguese influence. Even though Midori once concentrated on a classical approach to Japanese food, it has in more recent years broadened the concept, now incorporating local elements. Think of fusion dishes like caldo verde soup with miso shiro or clams bulhão pato style with sake - very unique dishes which expand the gastronomic exchange between Portugal and Japan over the last few centuries to a wider realm. Perhaps one of the quirkiest gastronomic experiences you ought to have near Lisbon!
🍴 Midori, by chef Pedro Almeida
📷 A moment of Midori’s Yama tasting menu
📍Penha Longa Resort, Quinta da Lagoa Azul, 2714-511 Sintra
If your budget allows, we highly encourage you to try the best of traditional Portuguese food (there are incredible affordable options all over town!) but also book yourself into one of these Michelin star restaurants for an elevated experience which will help you get acquainted with Lisbon's fine dining scene. If you’re lucky to try any of these restaurants, we look forward to reading your opinions and seeing your photos - please share them with us via Instagram! @cookinglisbon #cookinglisbon
