Pateo - Bairro do Avillez — Restaurant in Lisbon

I was really looking forward to this restaurant hearing all the great things about Jose Avillez and how he’s the best chef and restauranteur in Lisbon. My expectations were pretty high!

However unfortunately the overall experience was very lack luster. First thing is that we were being served by 4 different waiters there was no consistency or organization. We ordered our meal from who we thought was our main guy the appetizer came out and it looked delicious, however as you can see in the picture the lettuce with shrimp cocktail was missing a shrimp. We didn’t say anything because we didn’t think it was a big deal. Before our appitizer came they almost served us our entree even though it was actually for another table.

I also ordered their seafood soup between appetizer and entree and one of the waiter even brought us both a spoon. But to our surprise our entree showed up and no soup was to be found, we told the 3rd new waitress who gave us our entree she looked confused and told a different waitress that came back over and was like, “we forgot it you want me to just cancel it for you?” Wasn’t nice about it and very unapologetic, I honestly really wanted to soup but it seemed like it would super inconvenience her she was really trying to have us cancel it so we did. She was like eat ur entree and if you still want soup we can make it after. I’m thinking why would I want a soul after entree. Honestly this was super poorly handled in my opinion, she should of been. I’m so sorry we’ll fire it up right now and it’s the house and we’ll have it served up shortly while you enjoy the entrees. Or soemthing to that manner. Also we ordered our first round of drinks at the bar and other than that one drink no one ever asked us if we wanted another round of drinks. We were going to order a bottle of wine but since they came and took our cocktail glass without asking what’s next we didn’t even get a chance lol I order a 2nd round. Also no one ever came by to check to see how our food was.

Overall the food was actually quite delicious however the service was very very poorly executed. The waiters and waitresses were too busy cleaning and re setting the tables and making small talk with each other and no one ever checked in on us, and they all had this confused look on their face and never smiled or was warm or welcoming.

When we paid I think even the waitress herself was shocked when I chose to provide her with the extra tip option since she probably wasn’t expecting anything due to the poor service.

If they could bring their level of service to the same as the flavors of the food then things would be great and this...

We had an amazing dinner on a Thursday evening. Firstly, make a reservation. This is a Michelin recognized restaurant of on of Lisboa's top chefs, so don't expect to just show up and get an immediate seating. After receiving solid recommendations on two wines to try from the waitress we dove into exploring the menu. We were not up for a large dinner so didn't select from the "made with breads" or "on the coals", even though the aged beef picanha with smoked garlic cream looked amazing. We started with the croquettes and cozido pie. Both were very good, however the croquettes took the top grades. Next we shared two salads, the grilled lettuce hearts with pear and walnut vinaigrette which was a great balance of sweet and tart; and the asparagus and mushrooms with eggplant caviar and yogurt which was a great balance of taste and texture. From the small plates we started with the octopus in kiimchi sauce and sweet potato and Oven roasted Nisa cheese. While if you have had kimchi in Korea it will not give the same complex flavor, it does balance the tender octopus very well, and the boiled sweet potato slices add a nice texture. The Nisa cheese was my absolute favorite dish of the evening, I am not quite sure what the sweet element was but am guessing pear. The combination of the hot baked cheese and tangy tomato chutney was OMG amazing! The last small plate was the linguica sausage, of which I only had a small, but enjoyable taste. The meal was capped with the salted caramel dessert which was unlike any other I have had before. The top layer was a combination of salted popcorn, creamy chocolate fudge pieces, crunchy chocolate rice and smoked salt, the next layer way a light fluffy whipped caramel, with the bottom layer of salted caramel icecream. Mmmmm. With two glasses of wine, and two well built Moscow mules it was an extremely enjoyable meal at a very reasonable price. The wait staff were attentive and helpful with recommendations. The atmosphere was electric, very busy place, and being seated next to the kitchen service area we got to see many of the other dishes as well. We would highly recommend taking...

We were a group of 7 visiting Lisbonnand this restaurant came recommended by our concierge. We didn’t have a reservation so we were placed on the second floor in the Pateo section, which is fine. Place is massive and well decorated. The appetizers were good and tasty. The kids loved the sliced Iberia pork (we ordered another one after it got devoured). Tina tartare and prawns with garlic and chili were well received. Then came the main courses. We ordered the 2 scarlet shrimp, shrimp acorda, 2 duck confit, chicken piri, and a steak. With the exception of the chicken piri, every single dish was overly salty, with “overly” being nice about it. It was almost like eating spoonful of salt. We thought it was just us not use to local cuisine so we stuck with it. I mentioned it to the waiter and he was surprised by the comment and offered to have my dish redone (I declined because I was already done). Virtually all of us didn’t finish our dishes because it was just too salty. We are assuming that they make it salty because they expect and encourage ppl to drink more? We’re not drinkers at all and drank sparkling water the whole time (I think we went through 10 bottles because the salt made us so thirsty!). After going to other restaurants for dinner for the remainder of our trip, we can confirm that food in Lisbon should not be that salty.

Service was so-so. Waiter was nice and friendly. Communicated with us in English with ease. He was super busy though as the night went on because it was hard for us to get his attention to order more water and stuff.

For the price we paid, we were disappointed by the quality of food, especially from a restaurant from a Michelin star chef. We understand that he’s probably not even at the restaurant but he needs to go back to this restaurant and do a...