The menu at Mãe features traditional Portuguese dishes alongside home-style comfort food, presented with care and a contemporary aesthetic: modest portions, not heavy, and nothing deep-fried. There is not a single miss on the menu.
This restaurant has a story worth rooting for. Chef João Diogo Saloio and his business partner Raimundo Ferreira are childhood friends from Santarém. In the year before opening, João drove home to his family nearly every weekend to properly recall the flavors of his childhood and collect recipes from his mother and his nearly 90-year-old grandmother Branca. The partners built the furniture themselves and brought a great-grandmother’s sewing machine from home. Ingredients for many dishes are still supplied by the family from their kitchen garden in the village of Casével, outside Santarém.
The interior is bright, done in white tones with a clean minimalist design — but full of life. The walls are lined with around four hundred black-and-white photographs of mothers and grandmothers: any visitor can bring or send a photo of their own mother, and it will be framed and hung. Alongside the photos are phrases on the walls and on the placemats: ‘whatever you decide, I just want you to be happy’ or ‘don’t you have one of my tupperwares?’ The menu is written on a chalkboard and changes regularly. The house wine is called Filhos da Mãe — which literally means ‘Children of the Mother’ but is also, in Portuguese, a colorful expletive. You’ll get it when you see it.
Every dish has a story. The ‘Direita de Laranja’, for instance, is an orange roll that lies flat rather than being rolled up — because grandmother is nearly 90 and can no longer roll it the way she used to, so it simply stays straight. Order several starters — the octopus and the tartare are essential — and a main that suits your mood. The team will always help with wine. Budget around €50 per person including wine. Reservations are essential.
