After we finished with our coastal hike, we eventually needed to get back to Lisbon for our return trips. Instead of heading back through Porto (which all of us had previously experienced), we decided that we’d take a minor diversion to check out another of Portugal’s major cities: Coimbra. Home to Portugal’s primary university, Coimbra is an old town on a hillside that, in a country known for steep cities, is particularly steep, and fun to explore. Another advantage of Portugal is that it has quite a few high-end (and particularly Michelin-starred) restaurants that are still relatively affordable, and a few of the better-reviewed places in Portugal are located in Coimbra. We ended up taking our first evening in Coimbra to visit O Palco (“the stage”). While they haven’t yet received a star, they have some top-of-class cuisine, with an elaborate 12-course meal.
O Palco itself is an interesting little spot. Located east of downtown, it’s located on the first floor of an apartment building next to a pizza place. Despite the low-key exterior, the interior is quite nice: it is a cozy spot, with approximately half a dozen tables, and most evenings appear to have just a single seating (our seating literally lasted the entire evening). Most of the tables are directly across from the kitchen, which works well with the overall theme of “the stage”.
The basic concept at O Palco is that the menu is designed like a stage production, with individual scenes, ranging from a relatively simple “8 Scene” dinner, up to the Equilibrium Menu of 12 stages, which is what we selected. The Equilibrium menu is designed to explore meat, seafood, and vegetable small bites, with each “Scene” focusing on ingredients procured from a relatively close geographical region (they gave us a summary card showing the sourcing of each dish). Before our meal started, we saw the other table’s food getting prepped for the shorter “8 Scene” dinner, which was a nice touch.
Our Scene 1 turned out to be the same dish we previously saw being constructed in the kitchen: a trio of starters that was a Lupine Custard Tart , a Pata Roxa, and a shot of Beirão, enrobed in red cocoa. The custard tart was basically a more savory version of the basic Pastel de Nata, and quite enjoyable. The Pata Roxa was also another little treat in the same vein: basically a shark variant of bacalhau in a perfectly crisped little package. The final part, the shot of Beirão (an herbal liqueur mostly featuring mint, cinnamon, cardamom and lavender), was a nice twist on the tradition of serving Beirão in a chocolate cup. Here it was just a single pearl you popped in your mouth. So, we enjoyed this first scene, all of which involved subtle twists on Portuguese traditional items.
Scene two was a trio of beet items. Starting with a beetroot “sushi”, which was a carefully roasted beet, sliced sashimi style, and rolled with rice into more stamped beet with nasturtium and tapioca “roe”. While this definitely tasted like beet (with the ensuing protestations of Dan, who still dislikes beets in general), texture-wise this was an interesting match to a sushi roll. This was also the first point at which we saw a pattern through the rest of the meal: most scenes were delivered on blue-on-white Portuguese ceramicware that was generally shaped to match the current course.
The next part of Scene 2 was cotton candy, made from beetroot, dusted with seaweed powder. The beet worked surprising well for the cotton candy, which had a good overall light beet note that was almost tropical fruit-like, and the seawead powder giving it a nice overall set of earthy and salty notes. I liked the playfulness of this dish; it actually took me a moment after the entire Scene was delivered to realize that the garnish-like cotton candy was actually part of the experience.
Rounding it out: a beet juice and ginger cleanser served in a test tube in a beaker packed with ice. The delivery here was nice, giving a bit of a “science laboratory” vibe, and the drink itself was fresh, boldly-flavored, and a nice palate cleanser.
Scene 3 was an oyster tartare. This was another of those textural adventures: some finely sliced fresh oyster, topped with a gremolata of green apple and celery, and served with a cocoa butter pearl of sea water and oyster juice. The combination of green apple and celery is very different from the usual mignonette, with sweet and acid notes from the green apple, and herbal notes from the celery, but combining to have a texture and overall astringency really similar to the classic mignonette. Overall, I really liked how this dish played with both textures and the overall saltwater note of the oysters.
Scene 4 was described on the menu as “Snail” (at first I couldn’t tell if this was truly snail or a type of slug, but the Portuguese menu had “Caracol”, which means snail, and the plate was snail-shpaed as well). This was snail, served with “snail eggs” and foam. I’m generally okay with snail, but get more than a little bored by the typical French presentation which is essentially just turning the snail into a vehicle for butter and garlic (not that there is anything wrong with that). Here, it was nice to have a dish that didn’t bury the snail, and this was a nice treat both for being able to taste the conch-like flavor of a good snail and having some nice accompanying texture. I should have tried to get a picture of these after moving some of the foam out of the way.
Scene 5 was a tribute to cauliflower, serving that classic ingredient up several ways. The two main ways were braised and charred, which were quite good, and then then entire dish was served with a light cauliflower soup poured over it (which buried the everything and didn’t make for a good photo). But this was a very nice cauliflower soup, with good roasted notes, and perfectly chinoised to give a smooth finish.
Scene 6 then had a nice transition into some heavier flavors, with a very nicely executed beef tartare. A very flavorful local beef, with very deep red color and little fat, mixed with a light mayo, chives, what I think was shallot, and some pepper to make one of the more flavorful tartares I’ve had, and then the entire tartare was served up in a pastry cup for eating as a single bite. The nice combination of the crispy pastry and the nicely diced tartare made this for one of the more enjoyable dishes.
For scene 7, the course was cod. Yup, you’re not getting out of a Portuguese fine dining experience without getting some preserved cod (bacalhau). O Palco’s version of this was several small bites of well-tempuraed bacalhau, served over a broad bean, topped with a cabbage cap. This was very nice and crisp rendition of the dish, the cod itself being both moist and flaky. Alongside the bacalhau was a traditional dumpling filled with a cod and cream filling, which was a nice little morsel of sweeter cod. The entire dish was served with a shooter that was a combination of cod and mint teas, which was surprisingly refereshing (I don’t usually do seafood teas, but this worked well).
Scene 8 focused on eel. Smoked eel, in particular, that we served up as a shelfish, seaweed, and smoked eel rice that wasn’t that much to look at, but it was then covered table-side with a rich seafood-and-tomato broth that really took everything and combined it into a dish that reminded me of a particularly good étouffée, but with eel instead of shrimp. With just the right combination of seafood, herbal, rice, and tomato notes, this was probably one of my favorites of the evening.
Scene 9 was a bread course. The bread itself wasn’t any terribly special, but like most day-to-day Portuguese loaves I encountered, it had a good overall crustiness and a good wheaty flavor. Served alongside the bread were three toppings: an olive oil and herb sauce with an egg in it that was particularly good, and then there was also a pearl of heavily peppered lard (simulating leitão, a dish of suckling pig in pepper sauce). I’m someone that really likes black pepper flavors, and this was an extremely concentrated mixture of bold black pepper and strong lard notes. This worked surprisingly well with the bread, resulting in an experience that had almost all of the textural and flavor notes of a leitão sandwich, but without the actual leitão.
Scene 10 was the pork course in two parts. The first was a series of lard-filled cracker topped with local chouriço, a very nicely spiced and crisped slice of chouriço.
But that was a mere side show to one of the better-prepared items of the evening, the “Pork Chess”, which was sous-vide and then seared sliced pork belly with a patterned scored skin with a cross-hatch pattern (making the “chess board”), served with a pork and black-bean filled cabbage roll. Everything worked well here: the pork was very flavorful and tender, the fat perfectly rendered, the skin nicely crisped, and everything was plated so that each bite was a bit of pork, a bit of cabbage roll, and a bit of sauce.
After the pork, we shifted into the desert scenes with Scene 11, which was a simple rice pudding ice cream coated with white chocolate. The ice cream was nicely done and the perfect palate cleanser for the pork chess, and there was an added twist: one of the sticks had the restaurant logo stamped in it, winning a Major Award. Carol got that one.
As we all made side jokes about a leg-shaped lamp, the staff brought out Carol’s award, which was a golden pearl filled with a local gin, served up in a little terrarium. This was reportedly quite tasty, tasting like a really good gin an tonic, although not the sort of taste that you can share.
Finally, we wrapped up with Scene 12, the dessert trio. The first part of the trio was a nice, perfectly done, small creme brûlée. Next up was a nice rose ice cream (clearly rose, but not overwhelming so), topped with a rose-flavored cracker which was quite light and crispy. And finally, some more rose-flavored ice cream, topped with a rose petal. All nice and enjoyable bites.
With this, we finished the meal, 4+ hours after starting, and since we were the only table that got the Equilibrium menu that evening, we were there for both the opening andclosing of the restaurant, which is a bit of a unique experience for me. It was definitely agreat experience, but definitely one with a deliberate pacing best meant for patient enjoyment. I’d love to go back to O Palco, and if I do, I’d definitely avail myself of one of the wine pairings, and probably focus on one of the shorter menus like the 8 Scene meal. Still, a very memorable and enjoyable visit.
