José Avillez: from Belcanto in Lisbon to Tasca in Dubai

José Avillez's career: training at elBulli, Tavares, two MICHELIN Stars at Belcanto in Lisbon, his restaurant group and Tasca in Dubai.

A Silverfox Studios Perspective ON

5 min read

^{THE CAREER OF THE CHEF BEHIND BELCANTO AND TASCA}

Neoclassical pale opera house facade on a Lisbon square — Teatro Nacional de São Carlos on Largo de São Carlos, Chiado, Lisbon, 2008. Image: Lijealso, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

José Avillez is a Portuguese chef and restaurateur whose Lisbon restaurant Belcanto holds two MICHELIN Stars. Born in Cascais, he trained without attending culinary school, became head chef at Tavares in 2008 and won his first MICHELIN Star there in 2009. In January 2012 he opened Belcanto in Chiado, which gained its first star that year and its second in 2014, and which later entered The World's 50 Best Restaurants. Alongside it he built a group of more casual restaurants in Lisbon and Porto, beginning with Cantinho do Avillez in 2011. In 2019 he opened Tasca by José Avillez at Mandarin Oriental Jumeira, his first restaurant outside Portugal, which received one MICHELIN Star in the first MICHELIN Guide Dubai in 2022.

^{WHERE DID JOSÉ AVILLEZ TRAIN?}

Calm bay with moored boats and a seafront town — Cascais Bay, Portugal, 2015. Image: pedrik, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

José Avillez was born in Cascais, a town on the Portuguese Riviera near Lisbon, and CNN reported in 2016 that he grew up there eating seafood from an early age. He studied business communication at university, and Observador reports that his master's thesis dealt with the image and identity of Portuguese gastronomy. A three-month internship in the kitchen of Fortaleza do Guincho led him to tell a journalist in December 2002, at the age of 23, that his goal was now to become a professional cook. He told CNN that no one in his family had wanted him to become a chef. He never attended culinary school, and the MICHELIN Guide names the cookbook author Maria de Lourdes Modesto as his mentor.

A second mentor, according to Observador, was José Bento dos Santos, who paid for classes with Alain Ducasse that Avillez said cost 1,500 euros for two days. In 2005, while interning at the Hotel Bristol in Paris, he received the Chef d'Avenir award from the International Academy of Gastronomy. Observador dates his time at Ferran Adrià's elBulli, which he reached at his second attempt, to 2007. CNN describes it as an internship of one season and quotes him saying that elBulli was where he "really started thinking out of the box." The MICHELIN Guide lists elBulli among the restaurants in Portugal and abroad where he interned before taking charge of a kitchen of his own.

^{TAVARES AND THE FIRST MICHELIN STAR}

Historic restaurant shopfront with tall doors on a Lisbon street — Restaurante Tavares, Lisbon, 2011. Image: Etasobal, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Restaurante Tavares opened in 1784 on Rua da Misericórdia in Chiado, and Visit Lisboa, the city's tourism board, describes it as the oldest restaurant in Portugal and one of the oldest in Europe. From 1861 it was managed by Vicente Caldeira, under whom it was renovated in a combination of Belle Époque and Art Nouveau styles. It became a meeting place for Lisbon's aristocracy and for the circle of writers known as the Vencidos da Vida, among them Eça de Queirós, Ramalho Ortigão and Guerra Junqueiro. The MICHELIN Guide calls it Lisbon's most established dining institution. Visit Lisboa reports that the restaurant has since closed for rehabilitation works, with no reopening date announced.

Avillez was given charge of the Tavares kitchen in 2008, and the restaurant received a MICHELIN Star in 2009, the first of his career. Observador records that he announced his departure at the end of January 2011. In early September 2011 he opened Cantinho do Avillez in Chiado, a casual restaurant of his own, and four months later, in January 2012, the first version of Belcanto opened. The MICHELIN Guide notes that he received his first star at Tavares before leaving in 2011, and that Belcanto, bought in 2012, was a traditional restaurant in the same district of Chiado.

^{BELCANTO: JOSÉ AVILLEZ IN LISBON'S CHIADO}

Yellow tram passing a church on a sunny Lisbon street — A tram beside the Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Encarnação, Chiado, Lisbon. Image: Threeohsix, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Belcanto began as a men's club in 1958, according to The World's 50 Best Restaurants. The MICHELIN Guide describes it as a half-century-old traditional restaurant that Avillez bought in 2012. Its first MICHELIN Star came in November 2012, before the restaurant had completed a year; Avillez told the MICHELIN Guide it arrived after ten months of work. The second star followed on 19 November 2014. CNN describes Belcanto as the first Lisbon restaurant to earn two MICHELIN Stars, and the 2026 MICHELIN Guide Portugal lists it with two stars on Rua Serpa Pinto, near a former convent damaged in the 1755 earthquake.

In 2019 Belcanto moved to larger premises in the building next door. The World's 50 Best describes a dining room with vaulted ceilings, minimalist chandeliers and high windows, seating 45 guests, with tasting menus, an à la carte option and a chef's table with a view of the kitchen. The MICHELIN Guide notes that Avillez draws on Lisbon's light, its coastline and its districts, and quotes him calling cooking "our very own fado." Childhood references recur on the menu: the guide singles out a doce de ovos e citrinos of sweet egg and citrus, and a dessert napkin shaped like a sleeve, recalling the chef wiping his mouth on his sleeve as a child.

^{BELCANTO ON THE WORLD'S 50 BEST RESTAURANTS LIST}

Belcanto rose 33 places on The World's 50 Best Restaurants, from 75th in 2018 to 42nd in 2019, according to Observador. No list was published in 2020. The restaurant held 42nd place in 2021, placed 46th in 2022 and climbed to 25th in 2023. Observador notes that the 2023 result is the best position achieved by a Portuguese chef. The best result for a restaurant in Portugal belongs to Vila Joya in Albufeira, led by the Austrian chef Dieter Koschina, which placed 22nd in 2014. At the 2024 ceremony, held at the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas, Belcanto placed 31st, six places lower than the year before.

The World's 50 Best Restaurants lists Belcanto at 42nd in 2025 and describes it as Lisbon's landmark restaurant. Among its highlight dishes, the organisation names cured and smoked red mullet with Algarve carrot and parsley emulsion, matured beef sirloin with onion tart, spinach and almond spread, and scarlet shrimp with green curry, sprouts and apple. A further dish, "The Garden of the Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs", combines egg with crunchy bread and mushrooms. The same listing credits the pastry chef Américo dos Santos and recommends that guests book the chef's table to watch the kitchen at work.

^{JOSÉ AVILLEZ RESTAURANTS IN LISBON AND PORTO}

Multi-storey historic building with balconies on a Lisbon street — Building at Rua Nova da Trindade 16, Lisbon, 2011. Image: João Carvalho, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Cantinho do Avillez, opened in Chiado in early September 2011, was the first of a series of more casual restaurants that grew alongside Belcanto. Observador records the opening of the first branch of Cantinho do Avillez in Porto, and the Mini Bar opening in 2014. Avillez then prepared what Observador calls his largest venture up to that point, Bairro do Avillez, which The World's 50 Best Restaurants describes as a food hall with four eateries. When the MICHELIN Guide interviewed him in 2018, he had opened 17 restaurants of various levels and themes in Lisbon and Porto over the previous seven years. By mid-2019, Observador counted 21 restaurants across Lisbon, Porto and Dubai.

Outside the kitchen, Avillez works in publishing, broadcasting and wine. His first book, Um Chef em Sua Casa, sold more than 15,000 copies, according to Observador, and both CNN and The World's 50 Best Restaurants count four cookbooks. CNN reported in 2016 that he gave daily tips on the radio and presented a popular television series, and The World's 50 Best names the cooking show Improbabilicious. With the Quinta do Monte d'Oiro winery, he developed wines under the JA line; Observador describes these as created with José Bento dos Santos, the mentor who had paid for his classes with Alain Ducasse.

^{HOW JOSÉ AVILLEZ APPROACHES PORTUGUESE COOKING}

Avillez describes his cooking as built on food memory. He told the MICHELIN Guide that a caldo verde he ate in the Minho made him want to cook, to give people the same sensation, and he credits Sunday lunches at his grandmother's house and his connection with local farmers and fishermen. His signature dish, Dip in the Sea, combines sea bass with bivalves and seaweed and refers to his childhood memories of the sea. CNN reported in 2016 that about 70 per cent of the Belcanto menu was local seafood. He also told the MICHELIN Guide that he does not want to be the only chef representing Portuguese cuisine.

CNN quotes Avillez on the country's seafaring past: "Now it's our turn to present the new gastronomic face of our country to the world." He told the network he does not believe in being fundamentalist about buying everything local, and he pointed to the North African spices that inform Portuguese food and to the tomatoes and peppers that he said entered Europe through Portugal from the New World, a history covered in our article on the Portuguese spice trade. CNN described two Belcanto dishes: a cabidela, a peasant dish reworked with softened oxtail, smoked eel and a beetroot sauce in place of blood, and a xerém corn porridge with a herb sauce, clams and fish tripe.

^{JOSÉ AVILLEZ IN DUBAI: TASCA AT MANDARIN ORIENTAL JUMEIRA}

Mandarin Oriental announced the debut of Tasca by José Avillez at Mandarin Oriental Jumeira, Dubai, on 19 March 2019, describing it as the chef's first restaurant outside Portugal. The concept, which Avillez called "casual chic dining", is modelled on a traditional neighbourhood tavern, the format described in our article on petiscos and the tasca, with a contemporary update. Its sharing menu draws on dishes from Portugal's coast and countryside. The opening announcement listed giant red shrimp, piri piri chicken, a surf and turf platter with blue lobster and bacalhau à Gomes de Sá, alongside what the hotel called the region's largest selection of Portuguese wines.

The restaurant occupies the sixth floor of the hotel, with an open kitchen, indoor seating and a terrace with an infinity pool overlooking the Arabian Gulf and the Dubai skyline. When the MICHELIN Guide Dubai published its first selection on 21 June 2022, Tasca by José Avillez was one of nine restaurants awarded one MICHELIN Star. The inspectors wrote that the chef is passionate about the culinary traditions of his native Portugal and that the dishes offer Portuguese flavours with a modern edge. The 2026 MICHELIN Guide Dubai keeps the star, describes the menu as built for sharing and recommends the freshly baked pastéis de nata.

^{TASCA DUBAI: THE SILVERFOX STUDIOS INTERIOR}

Tasca at Mandarin Oriental Jumeira Dubai — Tasca, Mandarin Oriental Jumeira Dubai

Silverfox Studios designed Tasca, the contemporary Portuguese restaurant by chef José Avillez at Mandarin Oriental Jumeira, Dubai, with its terrace and bar. The project was completed in 2019, the year the restaurant opened as the chef's first outside Portugal. The dining room is furnished with timber tables beneath a slatted ceiling, and the bar is built with marble counters. Turquoise glassware and blue cushions are used across the interior, and illuminated shelving displays a collection of ceramics within the restaurant.

Beyond the dining room, the rooftop terrace looks out over the Arabian Gulf, the same outlook that Mandarin Oriental described when it announced the restaurant's opening in March 2019. Tasca holds One MICHELIN Star, first awarded in the inaugural MICHELIN Guide Dubai in June 2022, when it was one of nine restaurants in the city to receive a single star. The award followed the stars that Avillez had earned in Lisbon, at Tavares in 2009 and at Belcanto in 2012 and 2014, and it went to his first restaurant outside Portugal.