Behind the Porta de Dom Fradique, part of the castle wall of São Jorge, at the Grenache restaurant, Philippe Gelfi, 30, is the French chef who this new pearl of the 2021 Michelin Guide.

“We won the dish in December, which means that the inspectors were here – we never know who they are – and thought we had ‘very good food.’ I already know that, in the coming times, I will be even more visited by them. Next year, I’ll take the first star from them”, he guarantees, smiling and excited, as he serves mini-brioche fresh from the oven, accompanied by foamed butters of three flavors – Nori seaweed, lemon and herbs, orange and fennel.

With such a delicacy, it’s hard to doubt the chef’s word. It is quite possible that, soon, the star is hanging at the entrance. “I intend to continue the good work, I will be infallible”, he guarantees.

A French chef hiding in Castelo, in Lisbon?

Philippe guarantees that establishing his own restaurant in Lisbon was an unexpected and unique luck. But the truth is that luck like this only happens when the curriculum is founded on good foundations. At 28, when he moved to Lisbon, his was already incredible.

“At the age of eight, I was fascinated by the patisseries French and cosmetics making cakes”, he recalls. At the age of 15, he joined the professional cooking course at the Avignon Hotel School, where he was born. “I started cooking right away because they are programs where you spend a week at school and three weeks in a restaurant. I realized that I liked everything that had to do with haute cuisine – from cakes, dishes, even wine”.

Some time later, he was being guided by two of the most renowned chefs in the Provence region, both with a Michelin star – Robert Brunel and Christian Etienne.

He worked as an intern at Eleven Madison Park, in New York, a restaurant that is part of the restricted group of three Michelin stars, the maximum given by the guide, and when he moved to Paris, he worked at the Le Gabriel restaurant, two Michelin stars at the Hotel La Reserve, in Champs Elysees. He was also executive chef at Bistro Volnay, near Place Vendôme, and on Rue de Gambey, at Pierre Sang, a renowned chef of South Korean origin, a fan of cooking with local and seasonal produce, who was successful on French television and tells with several cookbooks published.

“After the Bataclan attacks, my security root was very affected”

That’s where he was when several restaurants in the eleventh district and the Bataclan concert hall, a few meters away, were attacked by terrorists on November 13, 2015.

“I only realized what was going on when I saw the soldiers in the street. That area turned into a scene of war. We closed the restaurant and stayed inside with the customers until the middle of the night. In the days that followed, my sense of security was greatly affected”, he recalls, not wanting to go into further details.

The invitation to Belmonte was a coincidence, one of those that they do as a worldview. It departed from the owner, Frederic Coustols, when Philippe was with his girlfriend to discover Lisbon. “We came to visit the city and took the opportunity to see the works of art that her sister had painted in Goa”, she says.

The paintings were part of the decoration of Frederic’s palace, who, in the late 1990s, had renovated the vacant building and transformed it into a luxury hotel with the right to honor the foundation of Prince Charles – the RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) award. for the environmental and heritage quality ensured in its recovery.

The building retains the old lines, but inside, a transformation was five stars and became a film set: Wim Wenders shot his there Lisbon Story, Marcello Mastroianni represented him says Pereira.

Frederic let them have a look at the paintings painted by Kashfi Anna Pinto, told them that one of the canvases was still being held in customs, and took the opportunity to invite them to dinner. In fact, he had an irrefutable proposal: “He asked me if I wanted to explore the restaurant and bar located in the hotel building because the old ones had left and the space was unoccupied.”

The chef didn’t even need to think, accepted as soon as the question was asked.

Four months later, Grenache opened the door. In the main room, Philippe hung a huge canvas of his girlfriend’s sister, precisely because he had difficulty entering Lisbon. The painting, titled “After the Party”, is about people intoxicated after a lively night out. And it came to have sentimental value and, also, to represent the leap from Paris to the safety of Lisbon. Next, it will be seen why.

“If I overcame and still won a distinction, I imagine that from now on the future promises”

Grenache has a luxury menu. It is a meeting of the strict rules of exquisite French cuisine with the traditional techniques of Provence and the modern and global touches of the typical creativity of a chef of the new wave.

“I always want to offer high-quality cuisine,” says Philippe, who is very focused on the teriyaki octopus that he will serve next. And the truth is that the result is an experience of several explosions in the taste buds, blamed on the millimetrically refined flavors. Everything there is precision and balance. Size, color, texture, temperature, solid.

How to explain it better? Give it a try: the six-course tasting menu, for example, includes some crunchy asparagus with a herb emulsion that looks like it came straight from the magical world of fairy cooks. There is a fresh cod to give up the 1001 ways that the Portuguese invented to make it. And the strawberry and shiso sorbet, with choux and mascarpone mousse, is to be hoped that it doesn’t get fatter because we’ll have to repeat it.

But there is a lot to choose from and the menu changes depending on the seasonal products. The summer season includes, for example, Iberian pork with black olive polenta, smoked eel with caviar and a texture of beetroot, grilled turbot on a watercress pillow and velvety vermouth sauce, plus a tomato confit, anchovies, ice cream of bloody Mary and pannacotta of parmesan.

Philippe is a perfectionist. From the service to the rigor with which you chose your wine cellar – a worthy sample of the best sommeliers – there is no overlooked detail.

“Before serving 35 dinners daily, I make 20 on good nights. After the first confinement, we were no more than ten. But if we discount the closing times, I’ve had the restaurant open for just over a year and I already have the Michelin guide dish ”

Philippe Gelfi

The young chef believes that his work counts a lot for the positive balance he makes of the experience in Lisbon, but says he also has a lot to thank the city for. “It has only been open for nine months when the pandemic hit. We did to remove, I resorted to some accumulated money, but I think it was important for us to access the fire and the support provided by the City Council. He didn’t make a profit, there were months when he couldn’t pay the bills, but we managed to control the damage and passed the test”, he explains.

For these and others, he guarantees that he will never leave the city. “It was difficult, we lost a lot of customers. Before serving 35 dinners daily, I make 20 on good nights. After the first confinement, we were no more than ten. On the other hand, if we discount the closing times, I’ve had the restaurant open for just over a year and I already have the Michelin guide dish. If I surpassed rhythms and still won a distinction, I imagine that from now on the future promises”, he concludes.

There are 25 Lisbon restaurants corrected in this year’s guide: 13 different with the dish, three with Bib Gourmand, seven with one star and only two with two stars.

It seems that Philippe just needs to keep the determination to serve perfection and the desire to let the dreams that occupy his mind guide him: “After the Michelin star in 2022, I want to open a wine bar or a tapas bar out of town . Maybe near the beach. Then I get married and have children. ” Always in Lisbon, where no one takes it anymore.

*Patrícia Paixão is a journalist.