Ilustração: Nuno Saraiva.
Com o apoio de:

“When my brother Oliver Zaciu and I (Sergio Zaciu) first launched the Immigrantfoodie, I never believed it would all come to this. If you don’t know, I began this page as a joke. I was waiting to hear back from job applications in Ireland and Germany, and was basically ready to leave Portugal and accept my future working in the offices of a big film corporation. Maybe Netflix, maybe Imax, maybe Mubi… Whatever the case, I was only pretending to be excited about it.

I loved working in the film industry, but I never wanted to end up working as a pencil-pusher for it.

Thankfully, what started as an Instagram page to share with my friends quickly went mega-viral. Burger Champ… Formosa… Ruvida… KAU BBQ… Delphi Cheesesteaks… Wham! All of a sudden, I had over 30,000 followers. Let’s just say I was very happy to receive that rejection letter from Netflix!
 
Things got really interesting when João Marecos and Catarina Carvalho from Mensagem de Lisboa reached out to me a little over a year ago. They asked to collaborate, and I immediately had an idea:
 
You see, I spent 8 years living in Los Angeles studying Film Production, but I didn’t discover L.A. through the movies. I discovered L.A. through Jonathan Gold, the food critic for the LATimes.

Foto: PierreLouis Guedon

Every year, he’d publish Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list, a guide to the city that captured all its culinary glory, from Japantown to Little Ethiopia, from Spago to Mariscos Jalisco. It was more than restaurant reviews, it was an anthropological study of L.A. and all it’s ethnic enclaves
 
I met Jonathan Gold one time. We were both walking out of a movie theatre in 2016. He was kind and gracious with his time. Sadly, he died two years later, but his memory lives on, and I wanted to pay tribute to his impact on my life by publishing the ImmigrantFoodie Top 101 list.
 
I figured this could be the start of yet another cool project. An annual list that captures the forever changing culinary scene of Lisbon and honors the chefs, both local and immigrant, that make it so electrifying.
 
Moreover, it was a chance for me to flex my writing muscles. I had spent the better part of the last two years making fast-paced videos, and had sorely neglected my love for prose — I’m not only a screenwriter, but also used to be a film journalist in a past life.
 
I took my sweet time, and Mensagem were very gracious to wait as I hit up every restaurant on my must-try list before sending it off for publication. In the meantime, Catarina and João applied for a grant from the Lisbon municipality, and we won! Then the sponsors came rushing in: Suddenly, this small one-off article turned into an event.

I don’t expect this list to be the definitive list on Lisbon’s best bites, and I’m sure next year’s list will be even more vibrant, but this is a start, and an exciting one at that! I hope you enjoy my writing and discover some new eateries along the way.

Bon apetit!

Veja aqui a lista em português.

mensagem tells the story

Mensagem tells the story

mensagem tells the story

mensagem tells the story

MENSAGEM TELLS THE STORY

mensagem tells the story

MENSAGEM TELLS THE STORY

mensagem tells the story

MENSAGEM TELLS THE STORY

O jornalismo que a Mensagem de Lisboa faz une comunidades,
conta histórias que ninguém conta e muda vidas.
Dantes pagava-se com publicidade,
mas isso agora é terreno das grandes plataformas.
Se gosta do que fazemos e acha que é importante,
se quer fazer parte desta comunidade cada vez maior,
apoie-nos com a sua contribuição:

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