A vegan, specialty coffee shop that fights food waste every day, has opened in Anjos, Lisbon. Welcome to Gal.
The team at Too Good to Go – an app that helps establishments make the most of their work – has already knocked on Gal ‘s door several times to see if they could strike up a partnership. But perhaps that partnership will never happen, not least because there are no leftovers here. “We work every day to ensure that there is no waste,” explains Vivian, one half of this project, who with her husband, Molina, has created a café that is home.
She was a journalist, he had a degree in Foreign Trade, and nothing predicted a happy ending in a restaurant. But it happened. “We were always saying ‘wow, the day we get our own place’, even when it was just a distant idea,” says Vivian.
When they moved to Portugal, Molina took that desire a step further, leaving his area to start working in the kitchen. But, as a vegan, he already found it very difficult to work with animal products and, although he was an expert cook, she left the tastings to the rest of the team. “So we knew that the day we opened our space, it would be vegan,” says Vivian.
The menu was already being thought up in the home kitchen and there really is a lot that has been part of their meals for a long time, such as the granola and homemade cakes, as well as the artichoke paste that comes spread on the bagels.
Gal has set up shop where Moko used to be, a café that was also vegan and gave them priority in the concession process precisely because they shared the same values. And for fans of Moko, be warned: the croissants are the same. “They’re a hit,” says Vivian, along with the pancakes – tall, fluffy and with delicious fillings.
The menu also includes toasts, hummus, ciabattas and a variety of pastries, but always including the famous pastel de nata (custard tart).
Natural wines, craft beer and specialty coffee go with it, not least because Vivian took a barista course after falling in love with the world of coffee and realizing its potential.
Gal is a meeting point
Despite being openly vegan, it’s a space for everyone. “We think of Gal as a meeting place,” explains Vivian. That’s why there have been yoga classes, workshops and the space has a shelf dedicated to the art of others, with ceramics, photography and paintings.
Now all that’s left is to explain the name, which, looking around, isn’t hard to imagine. “It’s a tribute to Gal Costa, because we wanted people to feel tropicalism when they came in here.” And we really feel it. Plants on the tables, on the shelves and on the ceiling. Records by Caetano Veloso, Maria Bethânia and João Gilberto decorate the room and add music to a brunch that extends into the hospitality of those who welcome us home.
Address: Rua Forno do Tijolo 54A, Lisbon,
Opening Hours: 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Sunday 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Marta Cerqueira is from Minho and a vegetarian. Luckily, she lives in Lisbon, where there is more tofu than sarrabulho. She has been a journalist for over 15 years, the last of which writing about food and sustainability. Now, out of the newsroom, she continues to write whenever she can, be it in magazines, journals, post its, or on her Instagram page, which she uses to share a life divided between being a mom-person-foodie-traveler. Still, she created Peggada so she could write about what doesn't fit in a magazine, journal, post it or Instagram: a better world.
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