Lisbon restaurateur Miguel Garcia likes to say there’s a big difference between chefs who cook for their guests and chefs who cook for themselves (or for stars). He’s very much a proponent of the former, which can be seen at his popular upscale restaurant Bougain, in Cascais, and his gentle reinvention of Café São Bento, a Lisbon institution for more than four decades.
His latest venture aims to deliver the same sort of uncomplicated but deeply satisfying cuisine in a glamorous atmosphere. In this case, the cuisine is Italian, and the location is the Cascais waterfront, which can feel a bit like the Amalfi Coast (especially if you’ve sipped a signature limoncello cocktail or two). Corleone has a name that was made famous by The Godfather, but it also refers to a town in Sicily.
The cuisine at Corleone Ristorante al Mare isn’t all that specific, ranging from Sicily to the Amalfi Coast and beyond, but it is generally southern Italian. Puglia-born chef Rodolfo de Santis, who made his name with posh restaurants in Brazil, oversaw the menu, which is a collection of popular dishes, sometimes with purely Italian imported ingredients and sometimes with a Portuguese twist.
None of it reinvents the wheel, but the classics are executed well, beginning with starters like vitello tonnato, arancini with tomato and mozzarella, and tuna crudo with mascarpone, artichokes, and egg yolk. The pasta for some of the first courses is made in-house and used in dishes like cavatelli all’Arrabiata with a slightly spicy octopus ragout and bone marrow, and gnocchi with San Marzano tomato rosé sauce and fontina.
Other pastas feature imported grano duro in classic preparations like cacio e pepe (with optional black truffle) and linguini al pesto with burrata and lemon zest. The main courses are also quite traditional, including a classic Milanese (crispy veal cutlet with arugula, fresh tomato, and mozzarella) and veal ossobuco served in its own sauce with saffron risotto.
The wine list is 75% Italian, with references from nearly every region of that country, and the cocktail menu celebrates traditional drinks like negronis and spritzes. The decoration is likewise Italian, with deep-blue walls and Amalfi lemon trees painted on the ceiling, a glamorous terrace, and Testa di Moro vases straight from an artisan workshop in Sicily.
For more information, visit the Corleone website.
Corleone Ristorante al Mare
Rua Fernandes Thomás 1
Cascais
Phone: +351 964 236 029
Email: reservas@corleone.pt
Hours: Daily, 12:30 to 15:00 and 19:00 to 24:00
