Antonio Coelho

The Place Coelho is Portuguese, and his cooking has stayed close to the traditional cuisine he learned in Portugal. “I love Portuguese food. I love the traditional and authentic cuisine. It’s the one I learned in Portugal. For me, that’s very important because I prefer the traditional things.” From 2007 to 2025, he was chef and founder of Antonio’s in Macau. In 2008, he was chef at Antonio in Macau, the role that places his work firmly in a city where Portuguese and Macanese gastronomy meet on the plate. The restaurant atmosphere remembered around his food was not stiff or distant. It was convivial and cosy, with cooking that leaned into butter rather than hiding it, and with familiar flavors treated as central materials rather than decorative references.

The Method Product quality sits at the center of Coelho’s method. “First and foremost is the quality of products. It is the most important aspect of cooking. It has to be fresh.” That preference shows in dishes built from direct, recognizable elements: clams sauteed with garlic and white wine sauce; fresh prawns sauteed with garlic; sardines set on the grill; duck rice made in the Portuguese manner. The flavors are not described through abstraction, but through fat, heat, shellfish, fish, rice, garlic, wine and oil. His own description gives the work a craft frame without making it vague. “Cooking is like an art, every flavorful dish is a masterpiece, carefully crafted with culinary skill, taste, and imagination.” In his case, that art is tied to repetition, freshness and tradition: the same insistence on product, the same affection for Portuguese food, the same comfort with butter on the plate.

The Range At Antonio, signature dishes included lobster cocktail, gratinate goat cheese with acacia honey and Portuguese olive oil, and Portuguese duck rice. Each dish points to a different register: chilled seafood, warm cheese with honey and oil, and rice as a deeply worked savory center. Antonio’s was also remembered for sauteed clams with garlic and white wine sauce, sauteed fresh prawns with garlic, grilled sardines, Portuguese duck rice, and Portuguese-style steak panfried in a lot of butter and served with a fried egg, pickles and potato slices. The list reads like a pantry of coastal appetite and old-country appetite together: shellfish in wine, fish over flame, rice, beef, egg, pickles, potatoes, and butter carrying flavor across the table. Across those dishes, Coelho’s specialty remained Portuguese and Macanese gastronomy in the region. The work was specific rather than broad: Portuguese roots, Macau setting, fresh products, and a room where the food was remembered as generous, buttery and social.