A taste of Beirut, unlike any other
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Campo do Ourique
Tue – Sat, 19h30 – 23h30
Let’s get one thing out of the way: this is not your corner hummus-and-shisha joint. Touta, the Lisbon debut of chef Cynthia Bitar and producer-turned-restaurateur Rita Abou Ghazale, is what happens when a Lebanese culinary legacy takes a detour through Lyon’s Institut Paul Bocuse and lands in Campo de Ourique with out-of-the-ordinary Portuguese ingredients, a flexible reverence for Lebanese tradition, and zero shortcuts.
Named after Bitar’s childhood nickname, the restaurant is clean, homey, and absent of the faux-Middle-Eastern kitsch you might expect. Add a cocktail menu that includes burning rosemary tableside, and a pantry of house-preserved jams and pickles you can buy to go, and you’ve got something quietly, confidently unforgettable.
Touta’s menu that fits neatly on one page—but don’t be fooled by the brevity. Each dish packs a slow-burning story. The baba ghannouj came crowned with lamb sausage, rocket greens, pine nuts, and pomegranate seeds, ringed like a savory halo by perfectly blistered flatbread. The Taco Kebbe was essentially a red carpet for raw lamb and arak caviar, a crunchy-tender miracle served on a bed of raw bulgur. It was the culinary equivalent of a high-class, tasteful striptease.
We drank a bottle of Domaine des Tourelles 2021 from the Bekaa Valley—because if your lamb is this bold, your wine better not be bashful. And speaking of bold: the artichoke, a seasonal stunner, came with its leaves deconstructed and its heart tenderly braised, then reincarnated in a creamy, mysterious sauce I briefly considered proposing to.
The squid Moghrabieh? Perfectly charred, ink-kissed with homemade foam, and nestled into something masquerading as chickpeas I can only assume was created by the gods. If our stomachs would have allowed, we would have ordered one of everything else on the menu there and then because FOMO is real with dishes like these.
We did, however, have just enough room for dessert. Two of them. The fig confit in anis-laced arak came hidden under a tulle crocante that satisfyingly cracked like sugar glass. Then came the Ile Flottante, a nod to panna cotta that came floating in a cloud of pistachio sprinkles and drizzled with angel tears.
Lebanese food this refined is not to be missed.
