Casa de Chá da Boa Nova is a name I keep forgetting, but a meal that created lifelong memories.
Featuring two stars and two tasting menus, one focused on fish, and the other vegetarian, one can select a meal up to 21 courses. If you've ever read this blog, you already know how many courses I chose.
This is an all afternoon experience, and I recommend going for lunch in winter and dinner in summer so the view from your table can look like this:
The meal is part theatrics, part storytelling, and endless creativity with diverse flavours. In a menu this large a clunker is inevitable. Not here.
The menu read as follows:
I will not recap each course, but will make comments on a couple of dishes
Can you pick what's edible? Who would have thought the smoky taste of charcoal blends so well with miso? I love a bold start to a meal.
Your seaweed bread proofing right in front of you
The guacamole and corn taco was one of the best bites of the meal. The guacamole silky and punchy.
The char, combined with the spicing, elevated this cauliflower and continued the theme of fearless flavours.
A flawless cabbage tart that was comfort food like borscht, but also felt like winter in Scandinavia with the incorporation of dill. This could be the signature dish at a ***.
Celeriac and strawberry. Earthy and sweet. The best strawberries I've had outside of Japan.
More comfort food. Hearty eggplant with a baba ganoush feeling, bathed instead in romesco.
Egg and mushrooms. What more could you ask for?
Before we transition to the final savoury course of seitan, and our bridge to the sweets.... the sun starts to descend over the Atlantic.
Why yes, that is a cartoon/graphic novel element with our meal. Despite the surroundings, a meal here is meant to be fun and not taken too seriously.
We come full circle and end with caramel miso. The sesame seeds pushing it over the top.
A final look from the car park at Casa de Chá da Boa Nova. I have but one question, are you hiring?
The Single Table pays in full for all meals it posts about.