A city experienced by night takes on a very different character to the day, something spontaneous that your average guidebook can never quite capture. As the city darkens, senses other than sight take over: and sound and taste become ever more important ways to explore our surroundings. This is the B-Side, the alter-ego of Porto.
Capturing the night for the Porto Travelogue Summer School, our sundown sessions will unfold each evening this week. These quick warm-ups/cool-downs are an "aperitif" of playful discussions and simple triggers for your night out, encouraging you to experience Porto from different perspectives. They're light, spontaneous and intended to lead you to unexpected places to meet unexpected people. We believe in serendipity, and that's the way these sessions have worked out. Here's the first of two stories about Porto's evening alter-egos that found us by chance, and will lead us off who knows where?
Flavours of the City | Pedro Limão
As if by magic, we're staying in the home of a food lover who goes by the nickname of Pedro Limao or Peter Lemon. It turns out he's a super-open super-chef from Porto, who with his artist wife Catia and other collaborators, has cooked up creative food projects to stir up the tastebuds of the city. With the belief that the concept of a restaurant needed a shake-up, Pedro created the 'Kitchen Studio', a non-restaurant in his (nick)name. No menu, no prices, an open kitchen where you can stop in and talk to the chefs, and workshops where you can learn the techniques. The word spread, and we've heard of food fanatics travelling from Italy to savour their delectable dishes.
It's now closed, but Pedro has let us in on the places to eat and drink he finds most interesting, and with this in hand we'll explore the city and its flavours as we taste our way through a foodmap of Porto. Eating is one aspect of food, but perhaps you only truly get to know a city when you create something with your own hands. We have an opportunity to create and document our own food project with the help of local chefs Bruno and Ana, Pedro's long-time collaborators. They are offering a Porto food workshop and meal to celebrate the course on the evening for Thursday August 6th, for both vegetarians and meat-lovers to learn to cook with them. We can even pick fresh herbs from Pedro's garden. 18 euros per head will cover the cost of ingredients and their expertise.
If we've whet your appetite, download our Flavours of The City Unfolded here and contribute to a collaborative map here.
We'll explore more on Monday, starting with African flavours with super Filó, an Angolan chef.
