Miguel Laffan

The Climb

Kitchen craft is built through repetition, and Miguel Laffan’s route through Portugal and France shows that plainly. Fortaleza do Guincho, Restaurant of Roland Chanliuad in Beune, France, Le Jardin des Remparts, and Le Clous de la Violette in Aix-en-Provence, France gave him a run of disciplined rooms where timing, pressure, and product control are learned the hard way. In that kind of progression, the work is less about display than about building judgment that holds under service. Executive responsibility widened that brief at Casa Velha do Palheiro Hotel in Funchal, Madeira and later at Quinta da Casa Branca Hotel in Funchal. Those roles placed Miguel Laffan in hotel kitchens where consistency matters as much as ambition, and where the chef is accountable for more than a pass. From 2011, chef duties at L'And Vineyards restaurant added another stage to that sequence, followed by chef duties at Atlântico Bar & Restaurant in Estoril/Cascais, where the coast is part of the dining frame. Since 2024, chef at Intemporal in Paço de Arcos has kept Miguel Laffan close to that shoreline. Chef at MaMi's sits alongside it. Taken together, the current work reads as the result of a career spent moving between Portugal and France, between hotel dining and restaurant kitchens, with each post adding to a practical vocabulary shaped by place and repetition.

Today

At Intemporal (since 2024), the work sits on the back of long exposure to exacting kitchens. The point is not novelty for its own sake, but control: a menu that can hold rhythm, stay composed, and still carry character. Chef at MaMi's extends that same concern into a different room, where the task is still to make the plate read clearly. The coast remains part of the frame at this stage. For Miguel Laffan, it is less a backdrop than a working context: ingredients, balance, and pace all sharpen when the sea is close and the kitchen has to answer to it. That outlook comes through in the way his career has moved—purposefully, and without losing hold of the basics.

Signature

MaMi's Bolo and Tischlein Deck Dich are the named signatures attached to Miguel Laffan. The names suggest a chef willing to let a dish carry personality without losing discipline. Set against work at Fortaleza do Guincho, Restaurant of Roland Chanliuad in Beune, France, Le Jardin des Remparts, Le Clous de la Violette in Aix-en-Provence, France, Casa Velha do Palheiro Hotel in Funchal, Madeira, Quinta da Casa Branca Hotel in Funchal, L'And Vineyards restaurant (from 2011), and Atlântico Bar & Restaurant in Estoril/Cascais, they read as concise markers of a wider cooking style.

In Their Words “A menu in a Portuguese restaurant without cod dishes and cod on its menu doesn’t make sense.” “I’m passionate about cod and that’s why I enthusiastically accepted Riberalves’ challenge.” The comments place cod at the centre of the argument. In Miguel Laffan’s terms, it belongs on the Portuguese table not as a flourish, but as a matter of logic. The language is plain, and that is the point: the ingredient is treated as part of the structure of the menu, not as a decorative note.

Recognition

Michelin Bib Gourmand (2025), Michelin Guide Green Star (2024), and Michelin star mark the recognition attached to Miguel Laffan. In a career built through successive kitchens rather than sudden arrival, those honours sit as confirmation of work already established through years of service. They place the name within the current culinary field without changing the terms that got it there.