Encanto - José Avillez

Vegetables set at the pass

At the pass, João Diogo Formiga Silva works as Chef at Encanto - José Avillez in Lisbon, where the station begins with vegetables rather than garnish. The restaurant opened in March 2022 in Chiado with a fully vegetarian tasting menu, a narrow frame that gives the kitchen less room to hide and more room to listen. Leaves, seeds, algae, mushrooms, flowers, fruits, eggs, and cheeses form the working vocabulary. The plate has to carry contrast without leaning on the usual weight of fish or meat.

Formiga’s public role here is culinary and operational: he is attached to the restaurant’s vegetable discipline, its research into ingredients and suppliers, its product use, and its waste reduction. His published background includes biology at the University of Aveiro and a master’s degree in marine biology there, a route that sits cleanly beside a kitchen built around sourcing, seasonality, and the life of a plant before it reaches the bench. Encanto also holds a Michelin star, earned in its opening year, and the restaurant’s current award count stands at 2. The credential matters less on the plate than the constraint that produced it: the vegetable remains the center, not the substitution.

A sequence of around 12 moments

The menu moves as a single tasting sequence of around 12 moments. That number gives Encanto its shape: not a list of choices, but a progression in which texture, temperature, color, acidity, and sweetness have to change hands without repeating the same argument. The kitchen works with seasonal product and local sourcing, and the restaurant states that about 85% of its ingredients are bought directly from selected local producers. It also describes about 90% of its vegetables and fruit as organic or locally produced. Those figures are not decoration. They determine what can be cut, fermented, warmed, folded, or held back.

Examples from the menu show the method clearly: confit egg yolk with Jerusalem artichoke and bean broth; truffled cabbage and onion with corn kernels and Azorean cheese; meringue with pine tree cream and kumquats. None of those dishes asks the vegetable to imitate something else. The egg yolk brings fat and depth, the broth carries pulse and earth, the cabbage takes on truffle and dairy without losing its own structure. The sweet course keeps the same logic, drawing resin, citrus, and sugar into a smaller register. Beverage pairings extend that discipline through wine, craft beer, juices, infusions, and kombuchas, so the pass and the glass work from the same seasonal pantry.

The room keeps the work close

The room in Chiado is small in feeling, contemporary in line, and quiet enough for the menu’s smaller turns to register. Encanto’s design does not push the guest away from the craft with spectacle. It keeps attention near the table, the plate, the server’s explanation, the interval before the next course lands. Inês Jones leads service and the wine work, with Afonso Rodrigues named as sommelier and host, so the dining room carries part of the method rather than simply presenting it after the kitchen has finished.

That matters in a vegetarian tasting menu because pacing is exposed. A broth can arrive too soon. A cheese note can close a sequence before the next leaf or fruit has a chance to speak. The room’s restraint gives Formiga’s station the time it needs: a confit yolk, a cabbage leaf, a kumquat, each placed into a progression where the hand is visible but not loud.