Lisbon - In the past year, Lisbon’s 19th-century riverside market has soared from dilapidated oblivion to a top attraction for its zesty blend of fine food, drinks, arts and hip shopping – a concept its owners are planning to replicate in London and New York.
Apart from serving as a gigantic window display for downtown renovation and the Portuguese capital’s tourism boom, the double-storey Mercado da Ribeira gives a physical dimension to the mostly digital Time Out magazine, which owns the expanding project.
The Lisbon unit of the global media brand, which provides tips about dozens of cities worldwide, asked its journalists and critics to handpick their favourite chefs, bars and shops for the market.
“This is a magazine, with various of its sections, brought to life,” said Joao Cepeda, director of Time Out Lisbon and chief of international operations of the new Time Out Markets unit that is to take the project overseas.
The venue sells Time Out-branded tours, invites musicians, and has an urban art project called Underdogs, which is a gallery and a public art programme for artists.
Cepeda said the market project used “our know-how to save” the Portuguese edition of Time Out.
During Portugal’s 2010-2014 economic crisis, revenues from advertising and website views fell. When the city council offered a 20-year concession to renovate and run the market in 2011, the magazine seized the opportunity.
The number of visitors – 60 000 in a good week – is double that expected.
Time Out is to open a market in London by 2017 and another in New York by 2018. It is also looking at Portugal’s second-largest city, Porto.
Customers sit at long tables and bar counters sampling fusion food and Portuguese dishes made in 20 busy, see-through kitchens. Popular choices are salmon-cuttlefish burger with seaweed on cuttlefish ink bun, salad with goat’s milk cheese and ice cream or fish tartar with avocado purée.
Rave reviews on travel websites frequently label the spot a “foodies’ paradise”, with many praising it as a pioneering “cross between a food court, a food market and a chef’s restaurant”, while others highlight its “hipster aura”, modest prices and vast choice of quality food. Cepeda calls it “a simplified version of a fine dining experience”.
The chefs are also happy as customer numbers keep growing.
“Business is better than when we opened, way past the novelty peak,” said Susana Felicidade, a prominent chef who runs Cozinha da Felicidade (Kitchen of Joy) in the market and a popular restaurant, Pharmacia, in an old quarter nearby.
Reuters