Anti-restaurants
Text
: Rafael Vieira
An
anti-restaurant is also called a supper
club,
a guestaurant
or a underground
restaurant
(UK and States), a paladar
or a restaurante
de puertas cerradas
(in Latin America) and it's a place that serves food and operates
outside any rules and norms of hygiene and security applied to the
regular (and legal) restaurants. Basically it's a illegal restaurant,
and in practice a paid private dinner. After the earlier boom in
other countries, the phenomena arrived to Lisbon due to a conjunction
between the economic recession and the conscience of more healthy
lifestyles. And it thrived, first with thematic dinners organized by
collectives (MAL,
Bacalhoeiro, Crew Hassan, Gaia)
and then by several enthusiasts of gourmet tasting and gatherings
out-of-the-box. The politically partially-oriented Cinema
Lá Em Cima
presents a veggie meal and a movie projection with very reasonable
prices in a terrace overlooking Lisbon. The Alfama district based
collective of Alfama-te
organizes dinners between unknowns and jumps every couple of days
from patio to patio. The Há
Mesa
regularly uses unusual spots around the city for their meals, where
the pay is substituted by a contribution of food to the group. A
result from the economical constraints as well the ambition to
appease the palate, one that also explains the proliferation of
rent-a-cook
kind of services.
Há
Mesa : hamesa.wordpress.com