João Wengorovius is a Lisbon-born author, speaker, and creative strategist whose work explores what we can learn from chefs about individuality, creativity, and authorship in a world of sameness. After a 25-year career in advertising – including as CEO of a global agency in Portugal – he left his job and studied cuisine at the Alain Ducasse Training Centre in Argenteuil, Paris. The result was the book We, Chefs, which is not about cooking or recipes, but about what we can learn from chefs beyond cooking. Combining his passions for travel, gastronomy, and visual storytelling, João delivers talks to businesses worldwide and documents his culinary journeys through reflective sketchbooks that capture the spirit behind the food.
Please introduce yourself to our members.
My name is João Wengorovius and I was born and raised in Lisbon. After studying Economics and Business Administration, as well as photography, I ended up working in advertising for over 25 years, the last ten of which were spent as CEO of the BBDO offices in Lisbon. Then one day, I decided to study cuisine at the Alain Ducasse Training Centre in Argenteuil, Paris, and left my job.
While there, I began to notice strong parallels between the creativity of chefs and that of other creative industries, and I decided to explore this further.
The result was the book We, Chefs, which is not about cooking or recipes, but about what we can learn from chefs beyond cooking.
What fascinated me was the way chefs search for their own voice, their unique expression of culture, cuisine, and terroir. In contrast, many industries today are driven by sameness – copying templates and following formulas. My book explores this idea of authorship and individuality in a world obsessed with uniformity.
Tell us about your current project.
I do a lot of talks for companies outside the restaurant world. So to businesses, different businesses could be banks, energy, doctors, whatever. And I explain and I see the parallels about this search for authorship in the world where everything is very similar.Outside of writing and speaking to businesses, I travel a lot and explore restaurants around the world. I draw the restaurants I visit in sketchbooks—something I might turn into another book one day. Drawing makes me pay attention in a way photos never could. It's slower, more reflective, and a way to truly absorb an experience.
When I travel, I’m always looking for places where you can feel the person behind the food. I sketch the restaurants I visit, not just the dishes but the atmosphere, the spirit. It’s my way of remembering. Over time, it’s become a visual diary of experiences. I’m not looking for luxury or trends—I want sincerity. A point of view. A story.
Tell us about the restaurant scene in Lisbon.
I think Lisbon has a very particular charm because it's like an old lady by the river and the sea, but still it has a lot of energy, things going on and a lot of contemporary things happening. It's bustling, but it also has a charm of the past. And somehow it's still managing to balance these things about modernity and history. That's always difficult to do in places where tourism is so big and keeps growing. Restaurants have been playing a very important part in this role, and the challenge for restaurants is not to lose their identity. Lisbon has changed so much over the past decade. The city opened up to the world in a way that’s both exciting and sometimes bittersweet. What used to be a quiet, melancholic place has become vibrant and dynamic—though I still miss some of that older, slower rhythm. Lisbon’s food scene reflects this transformation, from tabernas and simple tascas to fine dining. There’s a new energy, a new generation of cooks and creatives trying things on their own terms.
What are your three favorite restaurants in Lisbon, and why are they great?
A lot of people keep asking me where to eat in Lisbon. And it's a very difficult thing to answer because it has to do with the expectations. Sometimes you go out for dinner just for very good food, for a lot of fun or for a social experience. Some people want more creative food, some people just want comfort food. Anyway, these are some places I would recommend in Lisbon right now.
Canalha from chef João Rodrigues has been a huge success since they opened. It wasn’t unexpected that João would again do something fantastic, but I think the sudden success that this place had was surprising even for him. He somehow he hit the right nerve — it’s a place that is like a neighborhood restaurant focused on excellent produce. João’s technique is always impeccable, but it’s also very good produce, and still not trying to be fancy or Michelin star. It’s just a very delicious comfort food thing with something a bit unusual. It’s Portuguese, but sometimes it’s also Iberian in the sense that he could source some very good produce from Spain. He also has the dishes of the day, so in terms of how much you’re going to spend, there’s a lot of flexibility here. You can go just for the fish, the dish of the day, and spend very little, or you can choose from a wide range on the menu, or you can even go to a much more sophisticated thing and choose a fish or an aged meat or whatever on the counter. Two dishes I should highlight: the squid with sheep butter and the carabineiro with fried egg.
Prado has always been one of my favorites, with chef António Galapito, and I think it does very well. The space is beautiful, it’s airy and light—there’s a lot of light—and it’s modern. You feel like you could be in a European city in that sense, but the food is very Portuguese, and they don’t even understand how Portuguese it is, because it looks just modern, but all of that is done with Portuguese ingredients, and some of them are very traditional. The kind of meat that he gets, the cabbage, the bread—using a lot of bread in the dishes. It’s just very ingenious, and I think he does it so well that it looks very simple, almost too simple. Also, the hospitality part of Prado is very, very good. The dining room service is fantastic.
Gambrinus is a classic. It’s a place I would like to keep for myself. It’s not a secret, but Gambrinus is such a classic. This is a classic, traditional, high-standard restaurant in downtown. You can go to the dining room and have a long meal with roast veal, partridge pie, duck rice, and things like that. I usually sit by the counter and have some croquettes with mustard and a prego sandwich with a beer. The service is outstanding - they chat with you, and they’ll notice that your beer is finished and bring you another even before you ask. It’s old-school, super nice service.
Vida de Tasca opened in May 2025 and I like it very much. It used to be an old tasca for some 40 years until a young girl, chef Leonor Godinho (who worked under chef João Rodrigues for several years), plus other partners got the place, but didn’t change a thing in the setting. They serve some dishes of the day and very simple things. You start with some codfish cakes, pastéis de bacalhau or some croquettes. There were octopus fillets with octopus rice malandrinho, which is a rice cooked in more water than usual. They also serve bitoque, which is a steak topped with an egg and french fries - it’s a dish everyone likes. I like this kind of simplicity and authenticity that can be hard to find.
On the fine dining scene, Belcanto from José Avillez is always a sure bet. They have several new dishes on its new tasting menu that I've recently tried , like the Suckling pig with sarrabulho "mole”, the Beetroot in different textures, pine nut milk and mustard seeds or the Pike, cabbage and Portuguese stew broth, that are fantastic. And the service is always of high standards.
What’s a new restaurant in your city that you think is doing great things?
Boubou’s has been around for a while, and there was another restaurant there before. It’s a sister and brother running the place: Louise Bourrat cooks and she won the Top Chef in France in 2022. They have renovated it nicely and they serve more of a fine dining and creative, but not very formal menu.
Papagaios is another nice tasca by Joaquim Saragga, the guy behind Taberna Sal Grosso in Alfama. He opened this place in a neighborhood called Arroios. He has the same approach as in Taberna Sal Grosso: very simple, traditional food, small plates, and really, really nice produce. One of the dishes they serve is tomato migas, which is like a fried bread hash, from Alentejo. It’s soaked stale bread that is fried and it gets a nice flavor depending on what you add, in this case tomato. Also some nice oxtail and cod dishes.
YŌSO opened last year by Brazilian chef Habner Gomes in the Alcântara neighborhood, and the counter is beautiful. I had seen Gomes working in other restaurants and I was impressed from the start. The way he cuts the fish, and he does nigiris that are excellent. just won a Michelin star, by the way. It just got a Michelin star and it’s very good.
Do you have any hidden gem that you want to highlight in your city?
Maybe someone will find it odd, but in Lisbon I like an Italian place, Piazza Sicilia - Osteria di Michele Bono very much. The guy is Michele Bono. This guy was the chef of a hotel next to my previous office. I remember having a lot of meals there and never heard about him after that. Then I heard that he had opened his own place near Avenida da Liberdade, on a back street. And he’s quite a character. And the food is really nice. For starters, primi piatti, you could go for a pasta, rice, but it’s all very light and very well done. He did not renovate the place too much, so it has some old school charm, with white tablecloth on the tables. I go there more for lunch, when you’ll see some businessmen having their power lunches. It’s a really nice place, and I don’t see it in any guides. For me, it’s sort of a hidden gem.
Ciclo opened in 2024 and is run by a Portuguese couple that worked in France. It’s him in the kitchen and an assistant and the wife in the dining room, and that’s it. It’s like a bistronomy run by just the three of them. These kind of family-run places I really enjoy.
O Velho Eurico looks like another traditional tasca. But since a young team took over the place, they have some dishes that are really creative or unexpected. I don't know if I can call it a hidden gem, because it's already well known and always full, but it's certainly a gem. They renovated the space a few weeks ago and I'm really looking forward to going back.
What’s your favorite kind of restaurant, and why?
The problem is how do you define the categories because now there's an overlap of the borders of what fine dining actually is. You could have fine dining in a very formal setting or you could have just a counter or something. So I don't know how we define categories anymore. I tend to have a bias towards places that have some level of creativity that you can recognize, not just technique. Also, I think family-run restaurants usually have a degree of hospitality that is more genuine.
What are your three favorite food cities and your favorite restaurants in those cities?
1. Paris
Paris. Paris. Paris. Always. There's a lot of change going on there:
Septime is one of my favorites since I started going here, when they didn’t have a Michelin star. And I was just amazed at what they were doing in the kitchen and in the dining room. And over the years I’ve become a big fan.
2. Lima
The first time I visited Central I was so surprised of what I was having, and I got this immersion in Peru, with the idea of the produce from the different altitudes and creating a menu based on that. From the beginning, Virgilio Martinez had a very good idea for his restaurant.
Central may be the most famous restaurant in Peru. But Kjolle, run by Pía León, really impressed me as well.
Mérito is a really refreshing restaurant. The chef from Mérito, Juan Luis Martínez, is originally from Venezuela. I think you’ll hear a lot more about him - I have a feeling he’s going to go far.
3. New York
I love Atomix in New York, by Junghyun and Ellia Park.
Jeju is a Korean noodle bar that I like very much. It has a Michelin star, but the nice thing is that it's comfort food at a very high level.
The sophistication of Eleven Madison Park in their new approach of a plant-based cuisine is quite a challenge. A great place.
What is your favorite dish and where is your favorite restaurant to have it?
Among Portuguese dishes, I love fried hake, which is a very typical dish. Just dipped in flour and egg and fried. It’s usually served with a soupy tomato rice, which is called arroz malandrinho. The hake has to be very fresh, just fried and crispy, and rice on the side. A super delicious dish.
Who is an up-and-coming chef you are keeping an eye on?
The chef from Mérito, Juan Luis Martínez. Keep an eye on this chef, we will for sure hear a lot more about him.
Who is a food expert whose restaurant recommendations you’d like to see?
I trust food writer Kaja Sajovic very much. I think she never disappoints me with her recommendations. But also my good friend in Portugal, Miguel Pires. He's always well informed and he definitely knows what he's saying.
