Cura, Lisbon: Portuguese Dining Elevated

Origens is a carousel of tiny morsels made of Portuguese regional ingredients and upcycled local dishes. It is intricate, fun and challenges diner.

Five starters set the tone. A mouthful of charred, slightly bitter lettuce is nutty, sweet and the first sign of a lingering pickled theme that re-emerges through successive courses. A shatteringly-crisp tartlet of precisely chopped minhota beef tartare purrs with sesame. A grilled Sado oyster lays pristine under airy-light foam twinned with the fresh crunch of cucumber morsels. The meaty oyster is nearly lost but rolls forward as a latecomer with a distinct saline finish.


Cura’s beef minhota tartare with sesame in a crisp tartlet. (first); Cura’s grilled Sado oyster with foam and cucumbers (second)

The Origen wine pairing successfully couples this oyster course with a 2019 Granito Cru Alvarinho (€75 for six glasses). The wine menu challenges with exceptional drops like an unfiltered white wine that shares more with a French cider than a stereotypical Portuguese white. The wine menu highlights some exceptional Portuguese regional wines proving this country is foolishly overlooked by buyers. Race down to your local wine shop and find out what you are missing out on.

Cura’s star courses start with the last starter. Ribboned squid resembling tagliatelle sit proud against a pool of roasted seaweed butter and bergamot topped with caviar. Gold flecks greet me like an old Dubai friend waving back at me. Gold in food follows me like a bad smell. Nevermind. This is an exceptional signature Cura dish that creatively demonstrates the kitchen’s imagination. The only issue with this plate-lickingly good dish is there is not more. I consider whether to order a second from the a la carte menu (€33).

A minimalist turbot dish arrives with asparagus and a rubble of chipped mushrooms in a light mushroom broth with cockles and a roe mayonnaise. The super-soft turbot peels easily away fleshy petals like layers of a millefeuille. The ochre, lightly-flavoured mushroom consomme is lifted by bouncy cockles. It feels like a modern surf and turf where the land is both vegetal and autumnal.

The last star course is the supple minhota beef with celery two ways, broccoli and mustard greens. The beef tears away easily, fatty, delicious and moreish. The celery purée and a roasted snail shell of celery adds grassy sweetness. It is steak and two veg at its core. Elevated and served with precision in a bath of the minhota’s glossy roasting juices. You would also want to order this from the a la carte menu (€47).


Cura’s signature squid ‘pasta’ with bergamot oil. (first); Cura’s turbot with mushroom broth (second); Cura’s beef minhota with celery two ways and broccoli (third)

Other honourable mentions include an intense seafood curd bolstered by smoked eel and elevated with the sweetest prawns and verdant oil. The texture wobbles and collapses like a savoury flan. Cura’s service shines as Diogo, my chummy server, brings me yellow lupines, which I admit I never heard of until this moment. Diogo confidently talks me about lupines like he is Jack and this is his beanstalk. I mean that in an admiring way. The service is so engaged and familiar that this dinner for one becomes a family affair, but one where they astutely know when to leave me be.

Lastly, a grilled onion with buckwheat shingled with seasonal truffle balances the bitter burnt char with an onion’s natural sweetness. That haunting pickling flavour re-emerges with a hoppy earthiness under the crunch of buckwheat. The truffle is undetectable.


Cura’s seafood curd with smoked eel and swwet prawns. (first); Cura’s charred onion with buckwheat and truffle (second)

Is Cura the perfect meal?

Cura delivers excellence and fun. Pedro challenges preconceptions and provides the familiar in unexpected ways. I enjoy this kind of dining and, by the third course, I was already texting family and friends telling them they need to come.

There are some eyebrow scrunching moments mostly to do with flow.

An ancestral bread course arrives at the seventh course like a guest apologising for being late. Sure I like the aged, cheesy, umami funk of Cura’s butter. Yes I would spend a lifetime dredging spelt bread through slick pools of delicious Portuguese olive. Seriously, where were you about six courses ago? An entire bread course feels like filler. I could do without filler just before the mains.

Later, the first dessert of strawberries with coriander and elderflower is a sharp turn from the sublime minhota beef main course. It should be a palate cleanser and not a course on its own.

The final dessert of roasted Azores pineapple crowned with hay ice cream (wow, it’s good) and miso caramel is spoon-lickingly good. Yet, the citrusy timut pepper and lemongrass granita is ‘holy shit’-sharp distracting from one of the best pineapple desserts to pass these lips.


Cura’s ancestral bread course including this delectably buttery brioche (first); Cura’s strawberries with coriander and elderflower (second); Cura’s roasted pineapple with hay ice cream (third)

Cura, Would I Return?

I cancelled a table at Belcanto in favour of Cura on the advice of a friend who’s forgotten more about food than I will ever know. Cura lived up to expectations and is a serious restaurant to watch on the global stage. There are no Michelin stars (yet), Michelin Plates (yet) or lists of fifty or so restaurants. But watch this space.


Cura’s beef minhota tartare tartlet

Cura, Who Should Come Here?

Gastronomes looking for the next best thing, modern food enthusiasts and Portuguese food lovers. Travellers looking for that ONE place they should go to in Lisbon before leaving. Solo travellers that like eating alone. Oenophiles looking for a chaperone through Portuguese wine over dinner. Vegetarians looking for a tasting menu.