EAT | Jamie's Italian, Lisbon

If I asked you to name a famous chef, I bet the first name comes to your mind is Jamie Oliver. He is the most famous chef from my generation. If you are a bit younger, you may not remember all his cooking shows, or 'Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution' -- a TV series where Jamie traveled around US and showed the world how trashy the food at schools is and how he tried to change that. 

Because of his success, Jamie launched a few restaurants. One of them being Jamie's Italian that, eventually has been franchised all over Europe. And of course, when I hear that one opened in Lisbon, I had to try it.

We went on a week night, like we always try to do when going to these trendy restaurants. It was easy to book a table with on a really short notice, and we were hoping we'd have a nice calm dinner experience. But that wasn't the case. The restaurant was packed full, noisy and super busy. 

But even so, we didn't have to wait. As soon as we arrived the maitre d showed us to our table, we sat, we looked around and we knew we were going to have a good experience.

We looked to the menu, where everything sounded delicious. We asked for a nice bottle of red wine and as a starter, we shared an Hot-Smoked Salmon Bruschetta with ricotta cheese, fennel and lemon. It was to die for. The creaminess of the ricotta, that zing of the lemon and the warmness of the salmon go really nice together. Really flavorful and really simple. Simple enough to recreate at home!

As for the main dishes, I opted for the Scallop and Prawn Risotto and my friend asked for the Lamb Chop Scottadito.

My risotto was lovely -- The rice was perfectly cooked, really creamy and rich. It had a few prawns and a few scallops. But it wasn't perfect. My scallops needed a few more seconds on each side, because they were lacking a bit of browning.

The lamp chops were super tasty, juicy and tender. They were, though, a bit overcooked. The center wasn't completely pink as it should. My friend said that I'm a food snob and that both of our dishes were perfect, and that I was being too picky. But excuse me if I was expecting perfection! We were paying good money for our food and don't take me wrong -- the food was extremely tasty -- but I was expecting more attention to this type of details.

And then it came the best part of the meal. I'm going to be honest with you -- one of the main reasons I wanted to go so badly was because I wanted to try Jamie's famous Epic Chocolate Brownie. And it is so good. It tastes like chocolate heaven! It comes with a scoop of salted caramel ice  ice-cream and a few lovely crunchy caramelized popcorn curdles, and I don't know how Jamie came up with this combination but it works in so many levels! It feels like a desert a kid would make -- you know, by mixing all the candy -- but it works! The different textures and the different temperatures turn this dessert into a melange of sensations in your mouth. My guy asked for the Amalfi Lemon Meringue Cheesecake that was also mind-blowing. It's like a cheesecake and a lemon meringue pie had a baby and the best of them combined into this amazing dessert.  The lemon curd was tangy and creamy, and it had a mountain of meringue perfectly cooked covered with an extremely rich blackcurrant compote. We asked for two deserts because we thought that maybe one desert wasn't enough to share... oh but they are! Both of our deserts were huge.

The restaurant was really noise the whole time we were there. And even tho it has a very romantic atmosphere, the noise really kills the mood. We were having troubles in understanding what we were saying across the table. But we really enjoyed the experience. The food was great, the wine was awesome, and the deserts made it worth it. And yes, I plan to go back and try all the other dishes on the menu.