Reviews

Since we started the Hush-Hush Garden project, last year, we’ve been indulged with the most fantastic reviews from our guests. Here is what Kate said about us on Gusta.com:

“Wow – Hush-Hush Garden was such a lovely experience all the way around, it was certainly one of the highlights of our trip to Lisbon. Our hosts managed to strike the perfect balance between making us all feel at home with the pampered feeling of an exclusive restaurant. Each course presented to us was delicious and delightful, somehow familiar, yet unique. The only difficult part of the evening was making ourselves leave. I would liken the experience to the most perfect dinner party in the most beautiful garden setting.”

Just before the summer break, a great dinner party!

To celebrate with us, Daniela and Janine came from Barcelona, Kerry and Thomas from Atlanta, Maria José from Braga, André, Madalena and Susana from Lisbon and our newly discovered neighbors, Miguel and Patrícia, who happen to live up the street!

Despite the unusual mild summer, we were greeted with a very pleasant new moon night in the hidden garden. 

By Kerry & Thomas

 

Tuna fish with celery pure and green sauce

By Kerry & Thomas

Ultramarin shrimp soup with fried shrimps with cacao nibs and piri-piri

By Kerry & Thomas



Quail with "Molho Vilão". Upps, just the empty plate...

By Kerry & Thomas

Roasted rabbit with herbs & preserved lemon with sauté carrots and zucchinis

By Kerry & Thomas

 Cascais cake with Hush-Hush Garden's tangerine granita and a glass of Moscatel de Setúbal

By Kerry & Thomas

I’ll never get tired to say what a great privilege this is to be able to welcome and socialize with our guests. Getting to meet so many interesting and different people opens our mind and our hearts. Thanks for sharing these moments with us!

 Thanks to Kerry and Thomas for the pictures!

Enchanted Encounters

The will to share with friend and strangers the special garden at Hush-Hush made us start this underground dining experience. Good Portuguese food and wine wrapped in specially selected music and matching decoration seemed the best choice to put this idea into practice.

Suddenly we’re the hosts of an underground restaurant. At first site, a place to enjoy home cooking dishes, paired with good wine and great companion. After some time we feel it’s much more than that... These meetings are an open door, with no reservations, to face ourselves through our guests. It’s a disturbing discover but also absolutely inspiring!

It isn’t always possible to explain the purpose of the ingredients chosen to build a dish. And, honestly, it isn’t important as long as people enjoy what they’re eating and spend a great evening, that’s already a victory.

At Hush-Hush Garden, the purpose is to find the best organic or locally produced ingredients which will help to display the quality of Portuguese cuisine for those who visit us.

This time we head to Setúbal market. One of the best fish markets in Portugal. It also has a fantastic select of great fruits and vegetables (forgot to take pictures…).

I bought figs “Moscatel” to make a salad with smoked Porco Preto ham and wild pine nuts, and got some really fresh shrimps from Algarve to make the Ultramarin shrimp soup.

The heads were cooked with garlic, leeks, tomatoes, potatoes, piri-piri and cinnamon to produce the soup as the bodies were served à la guillo sprinkled with cocoa nibs and fresh piri-piri dices.

The main course was roasted rabbit, seasoned with fresh thyme, rosemary and sliced preserved lemon (from HHG lemon tree) sided by sweet potatoes from Comporta and a mix with zucchini and carrots sautés in garlic and olive oil.

This was a great opportunity to serve two special wines made with organically produced grapes from Casa de Mouraz in Dão region.

For the starters a white wine from 2010 made exclusively with “Encruzado” grapes, a noble grape variety from Dão. To pair the main course, a red wine made with a blend of Touriga Nacional, Alfrocheiro, Tinta Roriz, Jaen and the almost unknown grape variety Água Santa.

 Casa de Mouraz wines are produced with total respect to the ancestral cycles of nature and the traditional grape varieties and technics from Dão region. The harmony achieved whilst the wines are produced, mark them with character and charm. Perfect companions to the food we ate!

For dessert, carob cake with tangerine sorbet (made with HHG tangerines) with two different sauces. One a mix of raspberry and redcurrant and other made with wild blackberries picked in Arrábida sierra. The dessert wine was a fabulous and fragrant Moscatel de Setúbal from Venâncio da Costa Lima, gold medal awarded in the most prestige competition for Muscat wines in the world.

Many thanks to our perfect guests who contribute to an unforgettable evening bathed with a dazzling full moon!

HUSH-HUSH GARDEN MENU

13^th August 2011

To Start

Rosa Tonic

Tapenade, Guacamole

Home-made duck liver pâté

To Continue

Algarve fresh figs and Porco Preto ham salad

Quail with “Molho Vilão”

Ultramarin shrimp soup

Roasted rabbit with herbs and preserved lemon with sauté vegetables

To Finish

Carob wet cake from Algarve with granita from apple “Riscadinha”

Coffee and Hush- Hush Garden’s tea

Hush-Hush Garden prefers organic or sustainably produced ingredients.

Underground dining scene

A year ago, when we decided to take the Hush-Hush Garden project ahead, we didn’t expect to meet so many and different persons. Last time we welcomed Ana and her husband Carlos.

They live in Paris where Ana, a Spanish girl, started an underground restaurant with two friends. At Ana’s apartment they produce unique dinner parties where food and artistic performances are the pretext for unforgettable evenings. Can't wait to pay them a visit. It looks amazing!

Un artiste a la table

Being able to share our experiences with these new friends is absolutely fantastic and makes us want to keep up as we realize we’re part of a fantastic new trend which we hope is here to stay.

The underground restaurant movement or guerrilla dinning or whatever name we want to give it, started in south America countries, which the Cuban paladares are the best example. 

The entrance to Le Chansonnier and La Guardia in 2001 when we visited La Havana.

The trend soon spread across USA and, during the last few years, became an established urban movement in the UK and other European countries.

We decided to start our hidden kitchen project because we want the richness of the Portuguese local products and Portuguese wines to be appreciated by as many people as possible. Also because we feel so lucky having found our house with it’s lovely garden, that we want to share it with our friends and guests and, at the same time, enjoying good food and good wine.

At Hush-Hush Garden we chose to divulge the wonderful Portuguese cuisine that we try to display with creativity and prepare with the best organic and seasonal ingredients.

August dinner parties: 13^th August – Fully booked!

                                        27^th August – Places available.

Palmela on the table

Deciding the menu is a creative process. As always, we try to choose the most interesting products in season. Most often the natural marriages of the ingredients lead us to the definition of the dishes. We started with an organic red pepper salad as we did last dinner which combined perfectly with the cured Azeitão cheese, roasted almonds and cilantro.

By AnaMariaGozandoAvida

This was the motto, sort of speak. After that, Palmela’s great products were making part of the menu! Palmela is a fantastic wine region known for the great Castelão wines and Azeitão cheese.

The wine Serra Mãe Reserva, 2005 was made by a young and talented enologist Filipe Cardoso who is the driving force behind Sivipa, an old wine company from Palmela. 2005 was one of the best years of the last decade in the region and this wine, produced with 35 year old Castelão grapes, was the perfect companion for the dinner.

Since we’re in the summer, we thought shrimps would be a good choice! That’s how we came up with the Ultramarine shrimp soup. A simple broth made with really fresh shrimp heads from Algarve sided by fried shrimps with red chili and cocoa nibs from S. Tomé, an unusual combination and a reminiscence of the old Portuguese colonies which introduced the spices in our culinary.

Once more we baked Algarve’s carob wet cake. This time sided by a granita of Maçã Riscadinha, an old apple variety from Palmela with cherry sauce on top. Great combination!

Maçã Riscadinha de Palmela

Besides the atypical summer, the night was great allowing us to set the table outside. And once more we feel really lucky and privileged to welcome in our garden truly generous guests who share with us the pleasure for great food, great wine and good company!

MENU HUSH-HUSH GARDEN

9 de Julho de 2011

Aperitivos e Entradas

To start

Porto Tonic

Tapenade

Hummus de beterraba

Beetroot hummus

Guacamole

Salada de pimentos vermelhos e queijo seco de ovelha de Azeitão

Red pepper salad with cured Azeitão cheese

Codorniz com Molho Vilão e limão de conserva caseira

Quail with “Molho Vilão” and home-made lemon preserve

Sopa de camarão Ultramarino

Ultramarin shrimp soup

Conduto

To continue

Grão com bacalhau e coentros assados no forno com azeite

Chickpeas with salt cod and fresh coriander roasted in clay pottery

Sobremesa

To finish

Bolo húmido de alfarroba algarvia com granizado de cereja

Carob wet cake from Algarve with cherry granita

Leite creme

Egg and milk custard (traditional Portuguese recipe)

Vinhos

Wines

Vinho tinto (Red wine): Serra Mãe Reserva 2005, Palmela

Medalha de ouro no Concurso Vinalies International, destacando-se entre 3500 vinhos de todo o mundo.

Produzido a partir de vinhas da tradicional casta Castelão com mais de 35 anos de idade, este vinho fino e elegante apresenta aromas de frutos maduros e compota associado a aromas de especiarias. Na boca os taninos são evidentes casando bem com carne de aves, pratos de forno e a sua acidez faz dele uma excelente companhia para queijos.

Serra Mãe Reserva won a Gold medal award in the wine competition Vinalies International among 3500 wines from all over the world.

This wine is produced from 35 year old vineyards of Castelão, with a rich ripe fruit and spicy aromas. Its tannins marry perfectly with white meat and roast dishes and its acidity makes it a great companion to cheeses.

Vinho de sobremesa (Dessert wine): Moscatel de Setúbal Bacalhôa, 2004

Café e chá do Hush-Hush Garden

Coffee and Hush-Hush Garden’s tea

No Hush-Hush Garden escolhemos cozinhar com produtos biológicos ou produzidos de forma sustentável.

Hush-Hush Garden prefers organic or sustainably produced ingredients.