A world map illustrating Nuno Mendes’s influences would have pushpins scattered across every continent. Originally from Portugal, the chef-patron...
A world map illustrating Nuno Mendes’s influences would have pushpins scattered across every continent. Originally from Portugal, the chef-patron of newly Michelin-starred Viajante (pronounced with a hard ‘j’), developed a love of rustic cooking, as well as international cuisines including Goan and Japanese, at a young age. We recently joined him in the Viajante kitchen in East London, where he was developing two new dishes: squid ribbons in ink with pickled radish, pickled celery, sea lettuce, sunflower seeds and samphire; and confit duck tongues and hearts with celeriac, hazelnuts and scurvy grass with a pine oil dressing. Both exemplify Viajante’s constantly shifting menu, which is heavy on seafood, nuts, overlooked ingredients and unexplored combinations.
Viajante, ‘traveller’ in Portuguese, is a nickname of Mendes’s that reflects his ongoing search for culinary inspiration across Europe, the Americas, India, East Asia and pretty much everywhere else he visits. Before settling in East London seven years ago, he lived in the US for 16 years, travelled extensively, and worked with some of the world’s top chefs including Wolfgang Puck, and Ferran Adria at El Bulli. “My food is not Portuguese or British or Japanese,” he explains. “It is a personal interpretation of the whole dining experience. In Portugal and Spain there is an expression: cocina de autor. There is no direct translation, but it basically means ‘chef's cuisine.’”
For lunch, the three course tasting menu with wine matching (including exceptionally fresh bread, amuse-bouche and petits fours) is an utterly reasonable £28. We also love the cocktails across the hall at the Viajante bar, and the hamburger in a brioche bun on the bar menu left us speechless. It alone is worth a visit. Mendes’s next goal is to open a St John-style Portuguese restaurant, and to continue building on the success of The Loft supper club in Dalston. “The West End’s got nothing to do with me” he says. “The destination of Mayfair is obviously still important, but I want to show there are other neighbourhoods, I’m staying east.”
Ananda and Neil have visited Viajante and the Viajante bar several times, with photos taken on Tuesday, 22 February at 4pm. Viajante and the bar are located in the old Bethnal Green Town hall on Cambridge Heath Road. The Town Hall hotel, which shares the building, offers the bar menu as room service, and private dining from the Viajante menu is also available.
Text by Ananda Pellerin
Ananda Pellerin is a London-based writer and editor of Wheel Me Out. Neil Wissink is a visual artist also based in London.
