Food: haute cuisine with strong seafood influences
Address: Rua dos Navegantes 53-B, 1200-730 Lisboa, Portugal
Phone Number: +351 213 961 851
Website: www.loco.pt
Guide Michelin: 1 star
What I paid: 175 € (biggest menu, wine pairing, water and coffee)
Visited: June 24, 2017

LOCO is welcoming you with a suspended olive tree at its entrance, big windows in a modern dining room and an immense open kitchen with full “transparency” in the heart of the restaurant.

Executive Chef Alexandre Silva is well known in Portugal and have, for instance, won the TV show Top Chef de Portugal in 2012 .

LOCO is organically oriented and strives for national products in season. Strong fish- and seafood influences, but not entirely, though some servings are meat based. The restaurant values the national cuisine, but presents anything but “ordinary” food. There are a lot of experimenting with new techniques going on in the kitchen and I could trace similarities with both the more modern Spanish restaurants and the New Nordic Cuisine.

The restaurant is located next to the Basílica da Estrela.

There are two menus to choose from:

• Discover Menu (14 servings, called “moments”)
• LOCO menu (a minimum of 18 moments)

We opted for the bigger alternative (i.e. the LOCO menu a 90 €), together with a wine pairing, where the wines exclusively originated from Portugal.

My friend, that joined me for this dinner, does not eat meat. That was not a problem, and one reason, is that LOCO is very fish- and seafood oriented (which my friend luckily eats…). However, I stressed that I wanted the menu in its original form, and that was neither a problem.

This is what I had (which also correlates mostly with what my friend had):

(Click any picture below, to enter the gallery mode, with enlarged pictures)

Summary: good food in a nice setting together with superb service made this dinner to an enjoyably evening in Lisbon!

It suits me quite well, to have many small servings in a rather fast pace! Some “high-end” Spanish restaurants (and I have visited many of them…) sometime seems to forget about the flavor and put the technique in front of the food. However, even though LOCO also is a very modern and experimental restaurant (and located in Portugal, not Spain…), I think they manage the balance between flavor and innovation very well. Highly recommended!