Midori at the Penha Longa Resort boosted itself to be the oldest Japanese restaurant in Portugal.

Yet, if your are looking for a Japanese chef, you'll not find him there! Instead you'll find Pedro Almeida, a wonderful portuguese chef, and his team fusioning portuguese ingredients with japanese techniques and japanese dishes with portuguese twists.

For our dinner on Tuesday April 11^th , we chose the tasting menu simply called “Midori” consisting of seven dishes.

Chef Pedro Almeida knows how to combine a traditional portuguese dish like the Caldo Verde with the japanese touch of Miso Shiru. He did the same with all the dishes with dexterity and mastery. Every dish was subtle, delicate and tasty.

The wine list was very well thought through but very expensive, too expensive to our taste. Fortunately, there was a good selection of Sakes and we selected a sparkling one called Mio to go with our tasting menu.

The service was not on par with the level of the cooking: the staff was numerous, they were very nice but very disorganised which does not fit a high-end dining experience.

For this kind of place, as we mentionned to Pedro Almeida at the end of our meal, the staff should focus on the details, anticipate the guests' needs, and most of all, the chef should scale down the tables to accommodate a maximum of twenty people as Sergi Arola did at the restaurant LAB by Sergi Arola.

Pedro Almeida and his team are talented enough to make Midori one of the best restaurants in Portugal and as we told the chef: if he succeeds in making Midori into a true high-end gastronomy table, then we are pretty sure a Michelin-star will follow.

Midori

Estrada da Lagoa Azul

Sintra-Linho / 2714-511 - Portugal

T. 351219249095