Belcanto (Chef Jose Avillez) Review

The only two-star Michelin-starred restaurant in Lisbon, booked three months ago, which is easier at noon.

The most amazing experience!

The service was incredible, the food inventive and delicious and the wine pairing was perfect. We did the Exploration tasting menu with wine pairing I wouldn t recommend anything else - creative twists on Portuguese classics, this a must when in Lisbon!

I had the chance to have lunch in several Michelin stars, but the Belcanto is truly a gustatory and sensory experience apart. The staff is really friendly, and the food is brilliant, brilliantly executed by the chef and his brigade. I do not say anything more to tell you about the experience, but you really have to come to lunch there at least once in your life.

Superb service and amazing food with reinvented dishes and surprising combinations of flavour, colour and textures.

Invited by co workers in our Portugal Branch, Truly world class. Thank you

Really amazing. The Evolution tasting menu tops several 3 star places I've been to. The pot au feu variation and the sea bass were my favorites, but really every single thing was awesome. This kind of place is why I never express any dislikes at high end restaurants, because normally I'm not fond of horse mackerel, but the smoked version here was excellent. Worth making a trip for!

Divine 5-star restaurant! Even if the guides give a little less.

Really good food and great service. Just a bit slow! But food is very well presented and delicious

A formidable gastronomic experience! Comfortable, elegant and cozy place, good service and the chef's creations menu has pleasant surprises for the eyes and the palate. It is not cheap, but it has 2 Michelin stars!

Every dish is very delicious, especially the black truffle water tarts taste the whole horror, and the dish that I have appeared in my dreams for many years is this, the taste is so delicious~

We had dinner at this famous restaurant which is a 2 star Michelin restn. The food was very good, we ordered the big 13 courses set meal which costed Euro 185 each , wine was good at Euro 31 a bottle. The full course meal was a big too much for us, services was excellent

A guy is caught between "you have to save" and "you only live once" ... this time the last "won" attitude. And thankfully. It is not going to "dine out" ... it is a whole culinary experience that, perhaps spurred by expectation, can only be described as "brutal". This eating while "out there" the Lisbon Symphony Orchestra plays Prokofiev leaves a bloated type ... but it was just the "Festival ao Largo".
To repeat, there for 2019!

Holy moly! This place is incredible. We didn t have a reservation but were accommodated immediately. We didn t really know what to expect but were floored by all of the inventive and delicious snacks served to occupy us before the main course. My mother is very picky when it comes to meat and so the restaurant made sure to make her options work for her palette.

The servers were entertaining and always on top of stuff. They forgot a salad we ordered and apologized but it wasn t an issue for us because of the amazing service plus, we were surprisingly full even before our main courses. Highly recommend and worth the splurge! Lots of little surprises and really fun experience.

Incredible tasting menu and wine pairing with bio dynamic wine

The first Portuguese restaurant to get 2 Michelin Stars, Belcanto is a classic and a must for food lovers. It was my 3rd time in the restaurant for a dinner.

The ambiance and service are shy from perfect, the staff very friendly and the food very good.

I recommend the Galinha dos Ovos de Ouro a house classic.

Nice experience, but not worth the money, especially for a two star Michelin restaurant. The desserts were poor, I would expect a traditional Portuguese dessert, like pastel de nata or fior do ovos etc. There was no meat selection except for piglet. The courses are exteremely salty, the wine pairing is too expensive and definitely not worth trying.

The best restaurant I have been to on the world, everything was amazing and the surprises were probably the most inventive cooking I have experienced! If I had to eat any Where for the rest of my life it would be here the service was impeccable and friendly!

Sorry. Impatient waiters, talking to each other and giggling while serving. A very pretentious food, with little flavor and a lot of mixture. Mr. Avilez needs to take the reins of the house back, it seems that he is left in the hands of spoiled young people and with no commitment to quality.

A celebration of Portuguese food. A variety of flavours and textures together with accompanying wines. Prices according to the quality of the menu and chef, be prepared to pay around 150 per person.

Very good - we had the evolution menu and wished we'd ordered fewer courses. Each moment / course was delicious although some (squid head and sea urchin) are an acquired taste. Particularly enioyed the crayfish (no spoilers about the method here though).
Well worth a visit s there's something for everyone, however not quite at the level of Il Convivo in Rome

Simply sublime. Excellent cooking. Clear, clean flavours. Superb service.

Spot-on formal meal with recreated Portuguese dishes. The Evolucion menu was outstanding. The staff was attentive and subtly entertaining. The only disruption was Americans who special-ordered their meals and wanted to make friends with everyone. Be quiet and enjoy your meal. It'll better than anything you could have dreamed of.

The service was excellent and the atmosphere is wonderful. My brother and I had the tasting menu with wine pairings. Overall, the food was very good. I didn't love everything, but the quality and presentation was excellent. Our server was amazing. For a special night out in Lisbon, this is the place to go.

Modern Portuguese cuisine, with plenty of fresh seafood unique to Lisbon, was great!

Fantastic tasting menu. We elected for the classic tasting with the wine pairing. Simple and elegant. We will definitely be back.

Best restaurant by the Best Restauranteur in Lisbon.

Excellent. New rooms since this year. Fantastic food and menu based on traditional Portuguese food. Challenging partly, eg cabbage. But unique experiences in taste, preparation, presentation. Wine pairing awesome. Operation top. A detour and worth the price. Certainly, the best in Lisbon. On the way to the 3rd Michelin star.

Disappointed and expected more from the "Lisbon" prix-fixe. The seafood dish had an over powering fishy taste and the other dishes were average and not memorable. Step up your game.

Eat food and cry for more, but service does not match the quality of the food.

Excellent food and service !! Everything fantastic !!!!

A true gastronomic experience in a sophisticated environment and with care 05 stars

2 star Michelin place that really should be 3. Creative and delicious!

Very expensive, even nice food, but you pay for the brand.

Great restaurant in Lisbon
Quality of the tasting menu + wines for each dish
A great culinary experience
Fast and attentive service for this category of star restaurant
To recommend

We had our meal (discovery menu) a few days ago and was very disappointed about it. Me and my husband were foodie people and we have tried a few 1 star Michelin restaurants in UK. Before we came, we were very looking forward to the experience. But it turned out that the food was nothing exciting, very very normal taste. One of the dishes was duck liver Foie gras which we didn't eat due to ethical reason. We were very surprised that they serve this kind of dish in an international well known 2 Michelin star restaurant. And my prawn was under cooked and I actually felt sick after having a bite of that dish and had asked to send back. My husband also found fish bone in a very simple dish. The waiter took the dish away, chef didn't say anything about it at all. When I had a small bite of my first main course, it was nothing special about a piece of fish, I already felt sick from the raw prawn I had previously and I couldn't enjoy any more dish without feeling sick, we then decided to leave the rest of meal. We were charged in full price. My whole experience, not worth the money, food was over priced for what you get a normal experience. Not sure how they got 2 stars as well.

Wonderful restaurant. The dishes are works of art in presentation and flavours. Staff are fantastic too.

I may have been unlucky but I found the food banal and tasteless. I didn't feel like repeating

Fantastic tasting menu. Unique experience. Prices compatible with Michelin stardom

Portuguese food with author twist. The sea bass and the pig are absolutely divine.

I had the tasting menu with the wine and it was excellent.

Indescribable! Super attentive service and care. Obviously wonderful food and unlike anything we are used to. Texture, taste, presentation, everything is special about this restaurant. I recommend choosing the findings menu for a complete experience!

Very good place bu t make sure you go with a reservation.

Went here for lunch with my girlfriend and I must say the experience was amazing. We ordered the Lisbon set menu and the 5 wine pairing and I must say the food was the best I've ever had and the wine quality was in line with the food. This is an experience I would recommend to anyone in Lisbon with some money to burn on a top notch meal.

Awesome kitchen Impeccable service. The best of Lisbon

From the moment you walk through the door of Belcanto, the staff in the dining room and in the kitchen will take care of you. Everything was perfect from start to finish. We were 6 and the opinion is unanimous. The food is really excellent and pleasantly surprising! The chef really deserves his two stars! If you are going to Lisbon, do not miss this wonderful opportunity to taste the cuisine of Chef Avoulez!

We had a wonderful evening with 2 excellent and creative menus. The atmosphere is relaxed, the service excellent, very friendly and attentive.

Very interesting experience. Wine pairing not at the expected and deserved level.

Excellent restaurant, great food and very friendly staff. High price but for the food they serve the price is adequate. Super central and parking right at the foot.

Food tasted good but when I found a hair in one of the dishes. The Staff took the dish away and quickly swapped it with something else. There was no mention of the hair by any staff or manager. It's been a while since this incident but I still remember the hair in my dish and how the situation was dealt it and I have never wanted to return to any Avilez establishment.

Excellent and extraordinary restaurant. My husbund and I, we both enjoyed this event so much.
5 stars are much too less to meet this experience.

Wonderful experience! We ve been to Le Cinq in Paris but I think food quality is far better here!!

Central and elegant the good quality of all dishes and the refinement in general very good

One of my favorite places for tasty Portuguese food. I should have took a photo of the food but it was too good to interrupt.

Not the 1st time I ve been extremely disappointed with a critically acclaimed restaurant and probably won t be the last. Beautiful presentation of fun looking food but was so underwhelming for taste. Molecular gastronomy only takes you so far. We only had 3 dinners in Lisbon and this was by far our least favorite and at a cost of 3X the cost of the next most pricey meal. Save your money and enjoy the many more traditional, flavorful meals available in this beautiful city with much less stuffy and pretentious service. Disappointed to say the least.

I'll start with the good points. In general the staff were friendly and efficient. Except one. I'll come to that later. The food was at times challenging for members of the party, I'd hesitate to say the egg white was a tad undercooked, but it wasn't an appealing texture. Two members of the party didn't enjoy the dip in the sea. Things looked up with the pork, although the theatre around painting around the pressed meat reminded my son of my DIY efforts painting around a plug socket!
The issue came with the wine.
We'd had a wine flight the night before (at the excellent Leopold up near the castle) so braved the enormous list. I picked out one from the "specials" page of wines which would soon be taken off the menu and told the sommelier which one I wanted. A 49 bottle. I thought I was quite clear in my choice, but obviously not when I checked the bill at the end as I'd been brought a 100 bottle. I queried this to be told I'd pointed at this more expensive wine! Maybe I did but I would then expect the so - called expert to respectfully check why what I was saying didn't match what I'd pointed at. I find it difficult to read in low light at the best of times and I was put out by the dismussive manner in which the sommelier rejected my enquiry. It certainly left a very sour taste in the mouth. Not what I would expect from a two star establishment at all. It didn't look as if the North American couple next to us were enjoying their 16 courses either from what they were saying, either. My advice? Based on that corner of the restaurant's experience, avoid this place.

The true gastronomic experience! Fantastic service, sublime presentation of the dishes and an excellent wine list. To repeat without a doubt!

You're going to drop a bit of cash here, but it'll be worth it (and cheaper than the equivalent meal in almost any other country). Don't forget the wine pairing.

I really liked it, however the price / quality was too high compared to others in the same category, such as the ALMA restaurant. We chose a tasting menu with 5 wines and in the 2nd wine served I asked for a little more and they made themselves forgotten, in other words, it seems that they only serve 1 glass of each variety, which does not seem correct in a restaurant of this quality and with these prices.

We arrived to find that our reservation had been canceled - somehow, as here we were. When you have Michelin stars, you know how to make things right, and we ended up at a lovely private table where the staff meets to plan the day. Since we are typically noisy, this was perfect. Then came the food and wines over the next four hours! We had the 13 mini-experiences Evolution tasting menu. I can t even tell you what everything was, but fortunately we received a printed menu as a parting gift. Foie gras, seafood, pigeon, clam, shrimp, and more. Whimsical molecular gastronomy mixed in with classic, perfectly prepared and presented food. We were smiling, laughing, and amazed all evening. The service was superb, of course (Obrigado to Luis!). We asked if we could sneak back in next Saturday after the hike to try the other tasting menu, the Classic. Full, but they have our numbers, just in case! Very highly recommended. Cinco estrelas!

Amazing meal with every detail laid out perfectly! The staff was very kind and informative about the tastings. We did the Evolution Menu which is the newest creations from the chef, but it is expensive at 185pp. We were celebrating a very special occasion, so this was the perfect place to celebrate.

At the height of its Michelin stars. Each occasion is unique. Relaxed and welcoming atmosphere.

Top notch service, top notch food. Lisboa is a repeat visit just for this place.