SEM Lisbon

It’s not easy to walk the talk when you’re trying to create a restaurant that aims for zero waste, supports regenerative agriculture and champions a serious commitment to preserving the environment.
It’s even more difficult to do so and come up with a creative and interesting cuisine, with plenty of deliciousness (I loved the zander dish - a fish that is certainly not on fine dining’s ‘noblest’ fish lists - to which George adds fried quinoa on top of a strawberry seed pil-pil padron and worcestershire, egg white garum, rhubarb, blackened citrus and pine nuts).
It’s a cuisine of convictions, compromises, restrictions and less obvious choices.
You have to know that there are flavours that can only be achieved by waiting, like those that rest in all the jars and jugs around the room, believe that there are no by-products, only products, that waste cannot be wasted, that there are many people who think like us and are already doing their bit, in agriculture, fishing and sustainable livestock farming.
We have to trust that there will be more and more people who go out to dine primarily to enjoy themselves but who are not indifferent to the origin of the products, the philosophy of the restaurant, its creative integrity.
You have to be persistent, coherent and imaginative, not because of a whimsical choice but because there’s no other way to make it happen.
It’s a more winding road, but I can’t see Lara and George doing anything else.
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