Majestic and Modern

In the heart of Porto is another historic building worth seeing, the beautiful Majestic Cafe.

The exterior only hints at the beauty that awaits inside.

The Majestic, designed by architect João Queiroz, opened in December, 1921. With its beautiful Art Nouveau look, it was an immediate hit with intellectuals, bohemians, and ladies of high society and soon all the most influential figures of Porto society became regular customers. As is often the case, over time the cafe became dated and fell into disrepair, but the people of Porto recognized that it was an important landmark and, in 1983, it was officially recognized as a building of public interest. It closed for restoration and reopened again in 1994 as the stunning cafe you see here.

Another of The Majestic's claims to fame is that this was the cafe in which J.K. Rowling would sit for hours writing the Harry Potter books while she was living in Porto teaching English as a second language.

The paint and plaster work are wonderfully excessive as are the Flemish-inspired chandeliers, and you can easily imagine that you've gone back in time, were it not for all the tourists taking selfies.

Even the seating is beautiful. The tooled leather banquettes are original from 1921

as are the chairs.

I could have stayed here for hours drinking in the atmosphere, but we had only stopped for a pre-dinner cocktail. Our main destination was the Michelin-starred restaurant, Gastro.

It's terribly modern and more than a little self-consciously hip. The door of the concrete building in which it's located is locked and one must be buzzed in. The hostess seated us at the large horseshoe-shaped table which faces the kitchen

and we were presented with a wooden box that contained all the utensils that we would be using over the course of the dinner.

Dinner is a 12-course tasting menu, or 12 "moments" as they call them. I won't even try to explain each dish because of the complexity of ingredients, but I will comment on some of the standout "moments." Bruce and I shared a wine pairing, and a good thing, too, because the sommelier was very heavy handed. Here were our moments and their accompanying wines.

Our first dish was School Prawn from Algarve

followed by Consomme,

then Blue Lobster Chawanmushi, a Japanese style egg custard. They were accompanied by a non-vintage Fitapreta Rosé But Nature sparkling wine.

Next came Sea Bass with oyster and apple - sort of a Portuguese sashimi - served with Quinta do Rol Arinto, a lovely white wine with notes of citrus and tropical fruits.

Ocean Langoustine with XO and Vermouth sauce was my favorite dish of the evening. It was served with a lovely vinho verde, Almanua Terroir Maritimo, which also accompanied the next dish.

The waiter was so excited about the next dish: a mud crab curry. He said that mud crab is everyone's favorite crab here in Porto. Bruce loved it, I found that it tasted, well, muddy, and was just a bit too rich.

The Turbot Fish in Sea Broth that followed lightened things up a bit, but the fish was a bit overcooked and dense. It was served with an Aus Den Dorfen white wine from Austria.

We were only 7 dishes into the 12 moments and I was starting to dread more food. There was very little time between courses and having a bit of "digestion time" would have been welcomed, but on we went to the Red Mullet fish with Dried Tomato Tapenade, also accompanied by the Austrian white. The skin on the mullet was beautifully crisp.

I don't usually eat octopus because I have learned how smart and emotionally advanced they are, but it was a set menu, so I didn't make a fuss. This octopus was served with onion pearls and chicken skin. I wasn't convinced that the chicken skin was a good accompaniment. The Raiva do Alva Vinho Branco wine, however, was a good match with its rich hints of stone fruits.

Right about here is where it started to go off the rails, in my opinion. We were served an Oregano Brioche with herb butter, dried tuna, Portuguese olive oil and shellfish stew. The photo below? That's what each of us got. That's not a small bite in a series of small bites. That is, frankly, too much food. It was served with a Meio Rural Cristovão Tinto wine.

A kohlrabi foam with sumac was, again, very rich. Happily, the Negra Molé Rosé did help lighten it up.

At last we arrived at course 12: Iberian black pork with smoked eel and freshly shaved truffles. The portion was absolutely too large and the additional flavors of smoked eel and black truffle were just too much. The El Burro Malbec from Argentina was a really wonderful wine and I was tempted to skip the pork and just drink the wine.

Quite a large collection of dishes, no? Well, as the Carpenters used to sing, "We've only just begun." We'd had our 12 "moments" of savories, now it was time for the three courses of desserts, the first of which was Parsnip Mochi with miso and caviar. Yeah, something nice and light. (?!?)

Oh, and a Horacio Simoas dessert wine "Bastardo" was served with our desserts. It was lovely, quite reminiscent of Beaumes de Venise and would have been enough of a dessert on its own. When I saw the Sweet Carbonara with hazelnut linguini appear before me, I wanted to shout "Bastardo! - Basta!"

Then came the pear jellies, caramel macarons, white chocolate truffles and cannelés.

We paid the bill and rolled out the door feeling uncomfortably overstuffed. It was potentially a lovely dinner, but truly it was just too much food and too rich by half. The chef wanted to impress, but the whole experience could have done with some judicious editing.

*The horrible post-script: About 15 minutes after arriving home, Bruce felt unwell. About 30 minutes after that, I felt unwell. There then followed a night suffering the effects of food poisoning. No, it wasn't just too much rich food. I've had food poisoning before and this was definitely it. It was a night of hell which lasted into the next day. There was literally nothing left in my digestive tract. Bruce called the restaurant to let them know and was told that obviously we had some underlying health condition that was presenting itself and that we should go to a hospital because there is no chance that we could have gotten sick there. I suppose it's possible that the ice in our cocktails at Cafe Majestic was tainted, but food poisoning usually comes on more quickly than that. I guess we'll never know what the culprit was, but it made for a miserable three days.