Essencial — Restaurant in Lisbon

This was a difficult decision to rate it 4-star.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the restaurant, but there were a few things which didn't meet my expectations of a truly 5-star experience.

Essencial is a cozy restaurant with à la France modernish cuisine. It is rather small and has a nice open kitchen where you can see a fair amount of staff for such a small venue.

Menu is a 1-pager with starters and main dishes and a few dessert choices. You can choose between 2 options: starter + main + dessert 45Eur or 2 starters + 2 mains + dessert for 60 Eur.

There is also a wine pairing offer or you can choose from by glass or by bottle wine list.

Service is fantastic! Daniel, the sommelier, is very attentive, very well knows the wines he sells and has a good sense for gastronomic pairing. I particularly liked the stories behind each wine I tasted. Wine selection is not extensive, but more of a cherry picking as all wines are great with no weak positions.

Dishes are good, but nothing has excited me. I felt there was a slight mismatch between the pretentious concept and somewhat unexciting dishes. They all tasted good and I can't complain, it's just doesn't meet my expectations and the value for money. Dishes were ordinary with just a nice twist, but nothing special. Nothing to be surprised with. Lacks the excitement factor.

I really liked the oven baked rice dish with monkfish and prawns. That one ticked all the boxes.

Sourdough bread was superb, but I learned it comes from the bakery, not the restaurant.

And lastly, the restroom... You can't have the one which is even poorer than in public railway station. Especially if you aim at 100 EUR check per person.

These are all small details that altogether make an overall impression.

It can be that the current menu was not so special, so I promised myself to revisit Essencial next time I'm in Lisbon. I hope my next visit will have no doubts with all the efforts the team is putting in.

Sorry guys, and I wish you all the best and...

I took my family there in our visit to Lisbon after having read the amazing reviews here. Honestly, quite disappointed. The food was nice, I really liked the gnocchis and the fish was on point. In our opinion, compared to other 1* restaurants we have been in (perhaps we have been spoiled!), the techniques are there but the attention to detail is not (found fishbones, shrimp peel). An important point is that the kitchen can't handle the smoke and smell from cooking, and they kept opening the door for the extractor to work. And finally, why the two stars? When I came back from the restroom my family had already paid and they told me that they were asked whether they wanted to pay normal price or price with tip. The 'suggested tip' was included in the ticket by default, so if you did not want it you had to ask for it to be taken out. This is just out of touch. I am from Spain (no tip culture) and lived in USA, UK and currently live in Canada, all of them with tip culture. Never the waiter asks directly to your face if you want to add a tip, putting the customer on the spot like that. In no other restaurant in Portugal we had this experience: we were either they charge service with clear information on the menu, or we paid and left tip at our discretion. Since Portugal does not have a established tip culture and waiters should be paid proper wage by law, we could not believe that we were having this experience at a 'Michelin-star' worthy restaurant. I really dislike this 'asking for a tip' behaviour and I hope this gets corrected in the future.

(Fyi, my family did leave the tip)

Overall: Nice food but room to improve in atmosphere...

It’s easy to miss this French cuisine-oriented restaurant, as it only has a window in the door. However, once inside, the delicious aroma of the food being cooked immediately greets you (though the only downside is that your clothes might smell by the end of the night).

We had the tasting menu, which began with some amuses bouches. While pleasant, they weren’t particularly memorable. However, from there on, everything was top-notch. The sea urchin and prawns were a delight, and the pâté en croûte was also very enjoyable. The mains—red mullet and pigeon—were outstanding. The meal concluded with a lovely mille-feuille.

Their wine list is excellent. We started with a bottle of white wine (Malverino from Quinta de São Miguel), which had notes of oak and pineapple and paired perfectly with all the dishes. For the pigeon, we had a glass of Quinta da Monte Xisto Orbitá from the Douro region, a rich, full-bodied wine with cherry and oak flavours that matched the dish beautifully.

The staff was exceptional, with perfect pacing and a friendly attitude. The only thing I didn’t appreciate was the "gratuity suggestion." While I understand this may cater to many foreign guests, it felt a bit "American" to me and, honestly, a bit of a faux pas. That said, considering the quality of the experience, I adhered to the suggested tip, which felt about right.

It was our last night in Portugal, and it couldn’t have ended...