We recently ate dinner at a restaurant named O Palco, in Coimbra, Portugal. I selected the restaurant after a Google search revealed that at least one site – I think it was Trip Advisor – gave it a top rating and every person who reviewed it gave it 5 stars. Not a single disappointed diner who claimed that they didn’t adequately allow for his finicky food preferences.
To understand my frame of reference, which I hope will explain the basis for my praise of the experience we had, I have eaten at restaurants all over the world, from New York to London to Paris to Rome to Hong Kong, Manila, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and every major city in the United States, just to name a few culinary destinations. When it comes to a full evening performance, I have seen Broadway shows from Zero Mostel doing Tevye to Richard Kiley doing Man of La Mancha, I have heard Beverly Sills at the NYC Opera and seen ballets performed by Fonteyne, Nureyev, Baryshnikov and Kirkland. If I go all the way back to the 1960s, I heard Bob Dylan in concert many times and I saw Mickey Mantle hit home runs at the House that Ruth built. Sometimes getting old is not a bad thing. I think I have a reasonable basis for the superlatives that follow.
Without question, dinner at O Palco was one of the greatest meals I have ever had, but to call it just a meal is to grossly understate the experience. It was not just a wonderful 10 course meal, but a 3-1/2 hour performance. In a tiny restaurant, four of us we experienced a 10 act play worthy of a long run on Broadway. The head chef deserves a Tony award for best actor in a live performance, and he barely spoke, but the food he produced was exquisite. His wife, who served the food and described it course by course, deserves a Tony award for best actress in a live performance. The rest of the staff deserves nominations for best supporting actors and actresses.
Sit down, relax and order the tasting menu of 10 “courses.” They choose everything, but they ask about food allergies and make minor adjustments when necessary. All the food was prepared entirely from local ingredients, except for the coffee beans at the end. There is no locally grown coffee, but the beans were roasted and ground locally. Two of us had the 10 course vegetarian dinner while two of us had the ten course “animal “menu which relied heavily on local fish and seafood, while including as many vegetables as we needed. Each dish was served in its own special dish evocative of the food it contained. They used a dish in the shape of an oyster shell for a chopped oyster preparation with a frozen shaved ice vegetable topping. A dish in the shape of a snail shell was used for - - - a snail preparation.
My wife and I are serious wine collectors and normally we would not order the wine pairing to go with dinner because it is usually overrated. However, in this case, we decided to go for the full experience and the wine pairings, all local wines, were excellent accompaniments to the food. There was no Krug, DRC, Lafite, Monfortino or Scarecrow, but I did not miss them in the least, and they might have actually taken away from the ability to enjoy the food.
I cannot recommend this restaurant more highly. I would be hard-pressed to find a better dining experience. Portugal has many great dining experiences, and we had a few other wonderful meals while there, but O Palco stands a step above the others, including some from Michelin starred chefs.
I have many photos that I have to sort and crop, but I have included two just to give you examples of one course from each of the vegetarian and “regular” lists.
