Morocco in Lisboa
I have an urgent question!
First and foremost, I want to thank all of you for signing up to this newsletter in the past week. It brings me a lot of joy to pen these every week, and the ramen joints certainly appreciated the love, too.
I won’t be doing a ranking or a promotion with a local business this week, but I promise I’ll have some cool promos coming up in the near future!
That said, I hope you enjoy today’s newsletter. It’s a brief op-ed, along with a banger film recommendation and an opportunity to save 10% on your Secret Tab subscription (no joke I really do recommend signing up for this app, I’ve become a big fan!).
Please share this newsletter with your friends. Growing the subscriber-count allows me to collaborate with so many new restaurants!
Where is the upscale modern Moroccan-fusion!?
I recently put out a question in my Instagram story asking if anyone knew of great Moroccan restaurants in Lisbon. I got a few answers (some from Moroccan locals) and have added them to my list - I promise I will review them all when I find the time.
However, just looking over these options I was a little surprised that none of them were particularly elegant establishments! The food looked great, don’t get me wrong, but every spot looked no different than your average hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant, with a generic name like “Marrakesh” to boot.
Comparatively, some Indian and Nepalese restaurants in Lisbon have really stood out from the competition with beautiful interior design, and a stronger emphasis on being “elegant restaurants”; be it Oven Lisboa or Gunpowder. I’m the first to insist that food is what matters most, but the lack of fancy Moroccan spots does surprise me!
Morocco is only a short flight away from Portugal and there is a large diaspora of Moroccans who live here, so why isn’t there a notable chef cooking up Portuguese-Moroccan fusion in this city? I can only imagine the culinary wonders that would await us if someone would use Moroccan spices on some salted cod!
For the sake of drawing comparisons, look no further than Tapisco, which has cemented itself as one of Lisbon’s finest (and most bustling) restaurants. The fusion of Portuguese and Spanish cuisine is immaculate there, and I’d love to see someone try the same with Moroccan food at a similarly formal establishment.
If executed correctly, it could be a serious Michelin contender. Just my two cents!
New Highlights Added!
As I near 100 posts I realized that filtering and searching for certain cuisines is becoming increasingly difficult, so I created these convenient little icons that will take you to playlists of my favorite sushi/burger/Indian/Italian/vegan/etc. joints in town. It’s not a perfect system (Instagram could make this easier) but It’ll do for now!
I also gave the cover image of every post a facelift. I wanted something more aesthetically pleasing than the “close-up-of-food with golden text” so I went for this new playful polaroid look. The Lisbon background can also change depending on what city I’m in, which is a fun way to differentiate the location of the videos.
If you have any notes or thoughts about how I could make the page more appealing or easier to navigate, don’t hesitate to DM me. I’m always looking for advice to make the page more useful for you!
Looking for free alcohol before and after meals?
I recently started using Secret Tab (iPhone / Android) to cash in on two free drinks before going to my dinner rezys. I’ve found the app to be super convenient, and I like that it just picks my destination for me so I don’t always end up at the same bar. It’s also a cool social tool since it attracts a crowd of users to one joint every night!
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See you at the next bar?!
ImmigrantFilm’s movie of the week:
Since I’m a heavyweight cinephile, this newsletter will also spotlight my favorite film that I watched in the last seven days.
This week’s pick is Justine Triet’s new courtroom drama, Anatomy of a Fall. Triet won the 2023 Cannes Palme D’or with this unusual spin on the murder-mystery. Don’t go in expecting an Agatha Christie whodunnit; this is a viciously psychological query into domesticity, ego and dysfunctional relationships; a story of how a single legal battle can rupture a mother-son relationship and the perverse means that one needs to go through in order to repair the damage that’s been done. It’s not so much a story of “guilty or innocent” than it is a web of lies and the cushy spot we look for inside of that spider’s nest. The film is currently playing in theatres and festivals so you will have to keep your eyes peeled. It is in English and French, so if you can’t read Portuguese subtitles you might have to wait until it hits streaming services.
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You scratch my back and I’ll fill your stomach!
Thank you for reading!
Love your IG and now your substack, thank you for all this tasty pithy goodness 🙏🏼 Since you asked…it would be so bomb if there was a map with pins of all your fave spots so we can scout your recs for location. Just putting it out there. :)