The restaurant, which shares the name with Mendes’ cookbook, and which means ‘a person from Lisbon’, will be set across three floors in a townhouse building. The ground floor will be inspired by café culture and will feature a long, seated bar built from repurposed tram wood and topped with limestone sourced from Lisbon. Upstairs, will a be dining room with banquette seats and whitewashed walls.
It will also have a space in the cellar overlooking the glass-fronted kitchen and wine cellar in the basement called The Adega, which will open later in the year.
Lisboeta will open for lunch and dinner with a menu of small plate ‘petiscos’ as well as large sharing dishes for the table inspired by the popular ‘tasca’ restaurants of Lisbon. The wine list will focus on local producers in and around the Portuguese capital, highlighting long-standing wine makers alongside key players in the new scene.
News of Mendes’ pending return to the London restaurant scene first broke back in the summer when it was announced he was working with MJMK Restaurants, which owns restaurants Casa do Frango and Bar La Rampa and last year opened KOL restaurant with chef Santiago Lastra.
“Lisboeta is my love letter to Lisbon, the city I grew up in and the place I call home,” says Mendes.
“I’m excited to share with London everything that makes it such a special city. Lisboeta embodies the very spirit of Lisbon, in an informal yet informative dining space, that showcases the young, vibrant food culture, produce, wine and the gastronomic heritage of my home, in a playful and thoughtful way.”
Mendes name for himself in the capital back in 2010 when he opened Viajante in Bethnal Green (which closed in 2014), having previously run Bacchus restaurant. He was also executive chef at Chiltern Firehouse and launched Portuguese restaurant Taberna do Mercado in London’s Old Spitalfields Market in 2015.
He later went on to open Shoreditch restaurant Mãos with Hostem fashion boutique co-founder James Brown, which went on to win a Michelin star, but departed at the start of 2020.