Taberna do Calhau, Nowehere

Once upon a time there was an Alentejo taberna in Lisbon

This is another review that is not a real one, because this restaurant ceased to exist in spring 2025. However, I think it is more important to write about this place than about several others that have opened this year and harbour no interest whatsoever, despite what the various nefarious Lisbofluencers and WhateverInsiders may tell you.

Gastronomy is a thing, a new opening, something else altogether.

Taberna do Calhau was born in late 2018, when former architect turned into Chef Leopoldo García Calhau decided to “invade” Mouraria with a new idea: to bring back to the city of Lisbon an old-style taberna.

He travelled all the way to Beja in lower Alentejo.

He purchased all the furniture from a local taberna that was closing its doors, as many others throughout the country were doing.

His idea was clear: to bring back the spirit of those typical Portuguese eateries that were once a staple in Lisbon too, but had been replaced with more modern versions, and were back then already being menaced by eviction, high rents, and the looming and growing presence of soulless pancake and avocado toast breakfast places.

I remember meeting him during the “soft opening”: no food was available, but they sold and uncorked beautiful wines; it was clear that Leopoldo had a plan.

His taberna would be a place where traditional food would be enjoyed in pairing with the excellences of Portuguese viticulture: a perfect local response to the bar à vin, a growing phenomenon in Lisbon, driven by the relentless influx of French migrants into the city, with their habits.

It was Portuguese sommelier Daniel Silva who introduced me to Leopoldo, as we joined a group of local FOH staff in the nearby Graça gardens, all carrying one of the temperature-perfect bottles provided by Leopoldo for the occasion. It was a sunny, end-of-summer day. One of those moments so perfect you could picture your life like that. No return to the office on Monday, just good weather, good vibes and a vibrant city around.

For the occasion, colleague Chef Bertílio Gomes and gastronomer Paulo Amado had invited everyone around to Taberna Albricoque, the Algarvian taberna, to celebrate the opening nearby of a neighbour’s tabernacle: a festa to celebrate and elevate traditional Portuguese gastronomy.

As we sat down at a very long table, a group of first-generation foodies, journalists, and chefs gathered around to enjoy the moment. We all believed in this collective effervescence, thinking Lisbon would grow into a gastronomic destination for Portuguese food, a celebration of the land and the sea, and a beautiful heritage.

We were all wrong: in the following years, more and more restaurants were replaced by avocado bars, soulless chains, investment restaurants by big groups, French “concepts” and more fluff. All the while, traditional restaurants whose owners were ageing started to close, one by one, and only very few had the extreme luck to be picked up by a younger generation with ideas and a passion for Portuguese hospitality.

But back then, we were still believing.

And for many years after, Taberna do Calhau thrived in this difficult neighbourhood.

On its square, a private condo with lush gardens, 24h surveillance and swimming pools sits next door to a slum of apartments packed with Uber drivers cooking curry in their overcrowded rooms, where beds are rented out on rotation.

A historic bar and mercaria sat next door, alongside Leopoldo’s restaurant, a Belgian beer bar, a French-inspired bar à vin, and a local charity kitchen that doubles as an event space.

A multiverse.

Throughout the years, Taberna do Calhau has undergone many phases, lived many lives, and evolved ever so slightly.

The cuisine remained a point of excellence, but with time, some classics emerged throughout the menu and became beloved classics.

One of them is the seasonal sardine on bread, a token of appreciation for the Portuguese St. Anthony celebration course that can be enjoyed throughout June: a slice of grilled sardine on bread, accompanied by olive oil and roasted bell pepper strips.

Another was a summer heirloom tomato salad accompanied by a spoonful of pistachio ice cream. The fruitful friendship and partnership between Leopoldo and a famous Portuguese wine collector and amphitrion who loves this specific ice cream from the Italian brand Unico (in Italy: Funivia) has led to the development of this dish, and many others that combine a sweet, cold dollop of ice cream and one cooked or raw prepared ingredient provided by Leopoldo.

I do not want to go on forever, but Leopold, throughout the years, has crafted plates that deserve to be remembered and known.

My favourite one was a “rissol descontraido”: he took the shell of a rissol, and fried it separately from its innards, presenting both on the plate, simultaneously. This playful plate, inspired by his childhood memories, embodies his architectural mindset, where content and container can shift, meaningfully and beautifully, altering semantics, amending concepts, and changing perceptions.

The signature dish of Taberna was, by common understanding, the so-called “Alentejanina”: an Alentejo pork slice, grilled and covered with a sauce reminiscent of the “Francesina” sauce.

This dish was added to the menu in 2018 and has remained a staple ever since; however, it underwent significant changes over the years, not always to my liking. I adored, for instance, the earlier versions. The meat was perhaps worse, more rigid, less premium.

However, the sauce was fiery, and the dry meat could absorb it efficiently and pleasurably.

Besides his new creations, Leopoldo presented forgotten plates that are nowadays unusual, such as the goat’s head, baked in an oven.

He presented dishes from the Portuguese rural culinary tradition in a simple, straightforward, and understandable manner. He always opted for food that was a staple at home or from simple eateries in Alentejo, with a passion for specific ingredients when in season, such as coriander, mushrooms, and thick, luscious sauces to elevate every composition.

Another category of dishes he was happy to serve was those from his family tradition. One of his most famous and coveted desserts was a chestnut pudding-cake, heavy and moist. Made every week by his mother, the Pudim da Joana was one of the signature dishes of Taberna do Calhau, but will live on with any new restaurants and incarnations of Leopoldo’s cuisine.

His French-inspired plates, such as his dessert with an onion-drenched caramel sauce, mark a phase in his culinary trajectory where he sought to combine foreign influences with his Alentejo heritage, almost feeling the shift happening at that moment in gastronomy. The more French bistros opened in town, the more he was able to properly fuse their ideas with his own, in a medley of plates that could be seen as an outstretched arm towards these new, peaceful and gluttonous colonisers.

The idyllium was short-lived, though: he decided soon to close the bar à vin he had opened just á coté du Taberna do Calhau, and reserved that space just for events.

Informal events, such as the impromptu Andalusian cheese tasting and vintage white Port we hosted with our friend, journalist Edgardo Pacheco, one summer day.

But also more constructed events, with an actual guest list and menus, printed or just scribbled on the usual blackboard, with or without oysters, but always with some wine producers.

With time, Leopoldo the chef morphed into Leopoldo the host, developing an increasing and growing love for wine, especially natural and low-intervention wines, as well as those I define as “speciality wines” from Spain and France.

Many times I dined there, despite the price tag, and many times I would have dined more if the Taberna had remained open.

One day, we will collectively look back and even the most “new things oriented” writers of Lisbon’s gastronomy will recognise this restaurant carried more weight than most of what had opened (and closed) between its beginning and its end.

One day, someone will wake up and create an identical concept, perhaps escaping a little from the pricey frenzy that characterised the last year of this restaurant, going back to its beginnings, and recovering its spirit.

One day, instead of looking for the new Peruvian concept or whatever the investors think will make money, someone will look back at that restaurant, its meaningful decor, its stream of aficionado customers, its hospitality - sometimes brute, crude and raw, occasionally charming and embracing, and will weep because we all have lost something that made, finally, sense.

He often sourced unusual and forgotten ingredients, and his menus were packed with “quinto quarto”, similarly to the Milanese “Trippa” restaurant in this sense.

His iconic sheep’s heads, entrails and guts soon became familiar sights for gastronomy aficionados in Lisbon, casting a shiver down the spine to those not in the know, while others licked their fingers.

His invention and istrionic plates cannot be forgotten - in the same sense, some Portuguese who lived through that era remember Vitor Claro’s cuisine, or Pap’Açorda’s atmosphere.

The end of Taberna do Calhau happened in 2025.

Leopoldo migrated to his new favourite neighbourhood, a residential part of town called Alvalade, and then set up a speakeasy private dinner club.

I wish him good luck, really.

Taberna do Calhau has closed its doors, marking a significant loss for Portuguese gastronomy as a whole, which is increasingly squeezed between the insignificant and the corporate.

I am just waiting for Big Mamma group to open another bullshit fake Italian restaurant, or another French investor opening yet another natural wine bar, or another big corporate throwing money at Omakase concepts, bakeries, and breakfast places.

Or a fake alentejan taberna, the irony.

Meanwhile, we all grow a mounting disregard towards the true highlights and gems of this peculiar Atlantic gastronomy, crushed under the weight of its own self-loathing.

Taberna do Calhau represented a bright moment for Portugal, as it brought a new awakening to regional interests, local products, and socially and generally affordable luxuries, such as delicacies from the countryside, not just those available within the Michelin ecosystem.

However, its hefty price tag was a point of contention, and whoever takes on the onus of embarking on a similar journey will have to be mindful of removing any vestige of traditional luxury (expensive natural wines, carabineiros and oysters) from the menu.