Bougain Avenida Brings Cascais Garden Charm to Lisbon

The garden courtyard tucked inside the Valverde hotel always felt like a well-guarded secret—perhaps too well guarded, as the restaurants that were launched there never quite took off. That changed in 2025, when the hotel’s owner signed a deal with restaurateur Miguel Garcia to bring an outpost of his beloved Cascais ladies-who-lunch spot Bougain to the center of Lisbon.

Garcia, whose hospitality group owns Lisbon’s storied Café São Bento and Cascais’s glamorous Corleone, brings a classic approach to his restaurants: They aren’t places for star chefs to show off but for guests to be treated well, fed well, and shown a genuine, attentive hospitality. In fact, the chef’s names are rarely mentioned in the marketing for his restaurants, but he wants the dining room team to get recognition.

Arcaya

Real Estate

Discover Arcaya: A New Standard of Sustainable Living in the Algarve

At Lisbon’s Bougain Avenida, they deserve that recognition. The team, led by affable F&B director Bruno Barros, is efficient and friendly, precise in the way that they open the parchment that was used to cook a fillet of sea bass au papillote but smiling and carrying on a conversation with guests as they do so.

None of this is to say that the food is not good. It is good. It’s just good in the same way it is at the Cascais original—effortlessly enjoyable, the kind of Mediterranean fare you can come back and enjoy week after week. That means sharable starters, such as scallop carpaccio, garlic shrimp (here sweetened with a sauce made with port instead of the usual white wine), and a selection of tartares.

The main plates include some of the Cascais classics, such as the seafood rice and beef Wellington, as well as Lisbon-specific ones like red mullet with leek purée, and steak au poivre. Desserts go back to the sharing format, including a lavish plate of profiteroles dusted with pistachio and drizzled with warm chocolate.

The setting is at least as lovely as anything on the plate. They’ve added more trees, garden prints, and tasseled sun umbrellas to the already-lush garden, and they’ve gussied up the indoor dining room with floral upholstery and a winsome color palette that’s many shades of green.