António Souza Cardoso : Garfo&Rolha

Two iconic elements of a Portuguese table served to baptize an excellent eating house, which is housed on the beautiful beach of Leça da Palmeira. Garfo & Rolha is a practical restaurant with not very broad, but extremely convincing proposals. This type of restaurants that innovate in Portuguese regional cuisine are needed, giving it lightness and plumpness, but without mischaracterizing or distorting it.
The room is very clean, also light and elegant, with a design that, although bold and sincere, does not complicate the comfort and familiarity we seek. The service is young and expeditious, attentive and also familiar. The wine list is very good, showing that the cork has enough presence in everyone’s mind. Bottle in sight, beautiful giving the frame due to a restaurant that also intends to be classified as gastrobar.
The project is by Filipe Moreira and is one of those cases in which we have to say that “the son of a fish knows how to swim”.
The parents are the founders and owners of the great “Salta o Muro”, and when 9 years ago the young Filipe, with experience in the health area, showed a desire to go to work abroad, the parents, with only that son, challenged him to open a new restaurant. And it is good that they did so because they retained the enormous talent that Filipe has to form environments and teams and the sensitivity that he shows to present a very highquality card. You can see that the center is in the product, but the associated creative process, which has the support of Chef Álvaro Costa, allows such consistency that we feel from the beginning to the end of the meal. The menu goes well. We remember the executive menu that at a price of 15 euros offers a good show of what the Garfo & Rolha offers us. But let’s start in the right place which is the beginning. And the principle is in a glittering bread of mother dough and in a very fine toast that goes very well with whipped butter or with an olive oil chosen by Filipe.
At the entrances, be sure to taste the mushroom brass. Little did the old Mr. Brás, from the famous tavern in Bairro Alto, that the cod with its name could finally be made without cod and in this inspiring way. The Portuguese egg and the pataniscas are other entries worth betting on.
In substance, we highlight the sautéed calamari that reminds us of the arts of Mãe Palmira Martins, who holds with stoicism the rudder of “Salta ao Muro”.
The broths that come in an iron pot are an ex-libris of the house. Sea bass rice or coriander sea bass reveal an ancient and safe art of dealing with two products of enormous national trapeze.
But “saved was a bit” … In the end came a sliced naco on top of a crushed potato. Nothing too surprising, they will say. None of that – believe me, it is a huge experience for the palate to recover old flavors, from the old seed potato, made with generous butter, filling up on the juices of the meat for this unsurpassed “grand finale”.
Desserts with the same delicacy and homemade tone. If you want advice: don’t choose! Surrender confidently into Philip’s hands.
Congratulations to Filipe Moreira for the elegant way he sticks his fork and removes the cork from good Portuguese cuisine and wines.