The restaurant that was born in Beato’s Creative Hub opens its doors this Saturday. There is food, music, good conversation, and lots of Portuguese products.
It is more than a thousand square meters between doors and many more of outdoor space. In fact, there are few barriers to this project. A Praça, the restaurant space that will serve Beato’s Creative Hub – and not only that – finally opens to the public this Saturday, the 24th, after some pop up experiments that left a smell that something big was coming.
Peggada went to visit the space still finalizing the details of the inauguration event, and had Cláudia Almeida e Silva as master of ceremonies. The project’s mentor can’t wait to see the birth of what she dreamed of when it was still a draft. “I was born to serve the Hub, but where are the people for me to serve?”, she jokes, referring to the delays in opening the space that will incubate startups or, as Lisbon’s mayor Carlos Moedas called it, “the unicorn factory.” “We were the best behaved and are ready to open, all that’s missing is the mouths to feed.” It is true that companies and unicorns are taking their time to settle down by the river, but Claudia will not wait around. A Praça officially opens to the public on a schedule with the end of work in mind, knowing that when the Hub is up and running, the hours will be extended.
For now, it has a pavilion divided into multiple parts, but all working towards the same goal: to showcase the best Portuguese products and their producers. “We miss that. We have amazing products that are still unknown to a lot of people. Even more so who the people behind them are. A Praça will be the place to give stage to all this”, he says.
That is why each product on display is joined by a face, a name, and a producer. The ham leg, for example, is not just a ham leg. It is a product that comes from Feito at Zambujal, a project of Rui and Manuel Jerónimo, brothers, who decided seven years ago to change their lives and dedicate themselves to farming.
In a space without walls, the wine cellar, the olive oil wall, the grocery store, the bakery, and the cocktail bar coexist. The bread is made there, and who says bread says all its derivatives: toasts, pizzas and tartines, for example. The wine cellar is divided by soil type – schist, granite, basalt, or limestone, and is also a tasting area. At the bar, the cocktails are signature cocktails made with seasonal products. Now, you can expect to find carrot and plum in the list of ingredients. In the grocery store there are teas, rice, jams, salt, and everything you need to stock up on a national label.
Soon, we can count on the specialty coffee corner and the Companhia Portugueza do Chá corner. “A Praça is a living organism. We’re not going to open 100%, but you will see us growing,” assures Cláudia.
From the kitchen there will be snacks and outside will be the grill where the indigenous meats and fish from our coast will be served. Vegetarians have no reasons to fear because the mushroom season promises a toast that is amazing (we were told).
In the neighboring pavilion, and still under renovation, the continuation of all this will be born within a year, Cláudia believes. The space will be divided into sections: fish, meat, vegetarian, salad bar, juice bar, and also a fruit, vegetable, and bulk market. As the concept of A Praça is always to make the products known, the client has multiple ways to do this. Wine, cheese and charcuterie can be consumed there, can be bought to take home, and can also be part of the next basket you decide to receive at home – Praça is also a distributor of baskets of Portuguese products to your home. And even the fish and meat that will be for sale at the market, can be cooked right there on the grill, or packaged in the best way for a more home-cooked tasting.
Since this riverside space is not only about food, a small amphitheater has been set up that will be the stage for colloquiums, lectures, and even music. Thursdays will be jazz and the other days of the week will be duly filled with soundtrack for the meal.
On the top floor there will be a kitchen academy, “but a technical academy,” explains Claudia. In other words, this is where you will be taught how to make cuts, how to cut up a fish, how to take full advantage of the product.
Are you following all this dynamism? There is still more. Next to the market, there will be an open kitchen that will be occupied by chefs from the country’s most typical restaurants. “Can you imagine what it is like to bring the cook from Alpendre, in Arraiolos, where I go on purpose to eat the feathers (“plumas”), which are wonderful?”. Claudia is an enthusiast and gets us excited. Saturday join the inauguration party. From noon to midnight there is food, music, products, and producers. There is also a conversation moderated by Peggada about soils, conscious production and sustainability, with the presence of the mentors of the projects O Talho das Manas, Porcos Natura and As Ostras do Sado from producer Célia Rodrigues.
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