Vacation? Well… Never
As a person who travels for work, traveling for vacation is a tricky thing. You go on a plane, you check into a hotel, you go for dinner, you do some walking, when is it a vacation and when is it not? Well… It’s true that when it’s not work, then your calendar looks like an empty beach on a winter day, all vacant and virgin, but it really is a state of mind, a time when you are not thinking of work/tasks/ideas and instead fill your head with thoughts about: fun/partner/relax/enjoy.
But, for a person who thinks about work, it is really hard to stop, so.. Last week we took time off and went to Portugal, the south. Lisbon is a great city, with many food adventures, and great places to go, one of them is A-CEVICHERIA. It’s right at the center of the coolest street in Lisbon, at the heart of Principe Real, and in between the shopping, cruising, people-watching stands is the restaurant of chef kiko. He is Brazilian, but the place is a cevicheria - very Peruvian, the window open to the street offers the view of the guy mixing their excellent pisco-sour ( Peruvian or Chilean, depending who you ask).
A cevicheria is a great example of how to take an old tradition ( ceviche is thought of as a 2000 year old dish) and add modern thinking, techniques, and tastes to it.
Same thing happened to us when we got to Loule, a village in the algarve, there we saw an amazing exhibition at the ________. They took the old traditions of weaving, copper work, but together with modern designers tried to use them in a different way. A postcard had a name on it “the home project design studio” and an instagram profile. We wrote, they replied, and we asked to visit them in lisbon.
The Cevicheria takes no bookings, that is already old-style, no app is going to get you a table here, the only way to eat is to do what our ancestors did, stand in-line. For tourists this is good, it means your chances of getting in are as good as anyone else, and so we did.
The first two dishes that hit the table were both ceviches - one “traditional” and the other… Well, less. While the “pure -puro” on the left was soaked in the white ( tigre de leche) sauce, it was placed in a red plate, while on the right a white plate was filled with a red sauce - together they were perfect. Tuna, beetroot, raspberry, lychee and hazelnut…
Both were ceviche, but the tastes were so different, and went so well with each other. We love ceviche, it's our favorite starter, anytime, anyplace, and we had so many. But these two were at the same time, old and new, enjoying the genius of a 2000 year old dish, and at the same time, discovering new tastes, colors and ideas that come from the modern way of looking at food.
When we got to Lisbon, we stopped at the shop of Albio & Kathy, two designers, who worked on the loule exhibition, and opened their shop ant their hearts to us. They didn’t consider themselves “modern” designers, on the contrary, they had admiration for the old crafts-people.
This stool ( pic above) there is one person in the world who knows how to make it, and he makes it in a way that will last your life-time, it’s perfect it needs nothing, the techniques, methods, and ways of dealing with the material are a thing to admire, we sometimes just take them as they are, and sell them, because they are perfect ( did anyone say “pura-ceviche”?) and sometimes we look at the way they handle the material, and find a different use to them, or use\shape\change them to create a new product, the same technique to create a “cherry-picking basket” - yes there is a basket made just for that, can be used to create a mask to hang on the wall, or a small genius dish for “flor de sal” that delicate crust of salt created on the rocks next to the ocean.
Yes, we were on vacation, but one can’t help but stop and think. This is smart, this is really enjoying the wisdom accumulated by centuries of smart people, and not discourage it, because an app, an AI, or something can do it quicker, but to use it, and continue the evolution of it. That is so smart.
But, as it still was a vacation we continued for the mains, a cool taco filled with three different cultures all mixed into one bite. A Mexican taco, a japanese chili pepper, and tuna-belly ( shall we credit this to peruvian? Japanese? Spanish? Portuguese? Who knows?) And to top it all, a japanese katsu
The japanese version of the schnitzel inside a bread, but here iberian pork, black tiger shrimp, and to top it all, a spicy mayonnaise.. That you apply yourself
Great, just great. We ended here with a beautiful desert. Yes, the banana tastes like banana. Would our designer friends say - then why not use the original banana? Maybe. It's a thought.
Portugal was a great time off, the sun, the people, the sea, the hospitality, the old, the new, it was a great time, and just like any great vacation it was also a beginning of new thoughts, as mentioned in the beginning, when your office is your brain, you are never really on vacation, maybe just like those who invented the “ceviche” and the “cherry picking basket” they too never really had a vacation, they lived, and loved, worked and had fun, all together, one not contradicting the other.
To eat - https://www.acevicheria.pt
To buy - https://the-home-project.com
Enjoy your next vacation .
Ceviche "Puro" / € 18,90Corvina, Puré de Batata Doce, Cebola Roxa e Alga Wakame
Ceviche de Atum e Foie Gras / € 19,70Atum, Foie Gras, Beterraba, Framboesa, Líchia e Avelã
Sanduíche Katsu de Porco Preto e Camarão BT / € 17,80Bolo do Caco, Barriga de Porco Preto Ibérico, Crosta de Camarão Black Tiger e Salsa Criolla