The latest venture from Lisbon’s savvy Paradigma restaurant group (the folks behind unassuming foodie favorites like Ofício and Canalha), Lamina marks the return of chef Vasco Coelho Santos to the capital. While the chef worked in some of Spain’s top kitchens (Mugaritz, Arzak, and El Bulli among them) and earned his Michelin star in Porto for the Basque-accented Euskalduna Studio, his new Lisbon restaurant is proudly Portuguese.
Strictly speaking, the food has a northern accent, as both Coelho Santos and his head chef, Inês Azevedo, hail from the north of Portugal. But the casual diner is unlikely to notice that subtlety, being wowed instead by the char of the fire that touches many of the dishes, or the fearlessness of the nose-to-tail butchery.
The chefs buy whole animals and then aim to use every part, resulting in traditional dishes that have become hard to find in modern restaurants, such as the snacks of smoked ox tongue, heart skewers with green sauce, and liver pâté with molasses toast. Elsewhere on the menu, you can find a pig’s belly, rib, ear, tongue, and cheek, as well as trimmings and bones used in sauces and stocks; there’s also a range of smoked meats, cured sausages, and artisanal cold cuts for sale in a takeaway shop.
That’s not to say less adventurous eaters are unwelcome. The menu includes plenty of dishes using more conventional ingredients, such as tuna with snow peas and egg yolk, and sweet red prawns with homemade cocktail sauce. There are also sections devoted to simply grilled items—chicken with pineapple, or red mullet with padrón peppers—and, in keeping with Portuguese tradition, large-format dishes in clay pots, such as slow-cooked oxtail rice and homey seafood pasta stew.
The desserts also include a bit of fun. A chocolate composition includes a mushroom crumble along with caramel, while the tarte tatin is paired with yogurt-and-yuzu ice cream. The most compelling is listed on the menu as “Vasco’s French toast” (rabanadas, a typical Christmastime treat) and served with Moscatel sorbet.
For more information, visit the Lamina website.
Lamina
Avenida Duque de Ávila 42B
Lisbon
Phone: +351 963 323 869
Email: hello@lamina.pt
Hours: Monday to Friday – 12:30 to 15:30 and 19:00 to 23:00
(All photos courtesy of Lamina. ©Henrique Isidoro)