We really did it, a gourmet BBQ!

This was a very special session. It was our first supper club out in the air.
This time the location was the terrace in the Pensão Rosinha, the one that is located in Praça das Flores. We were a bit concerned because the temperature on the week before reached 40ºc in Lisbon, and the terrace can be really hard to stand with that kind of heat. So we came up with all sort of ways to refresh the supper club, we even got an outdoor shower... just in case. But we were so lucky that the sunday of the supper club turned out to have really nice weather, not hot, not cold, enough clouds to protect us from what would have been really hot otherwise.

Mariana Cardoso was in charge of the grill, and demoed some cool grilling techniques. Paulo and Camila did a great work arranging everything to receive our guests. We had refreshing drinks, nice music, and a really nice Lisbon sunday mood. So we all sat and ate and talked for five hours, time just flew I guess... once more we stated that when people get together around a table with good food, great moments happen.

This was the menu for this session:

Cocktail
Strawberry Basil Lemonade

Starter
My grandma's special oven fried sprats
Grilled figs with honey, hot sauce and pancetta

Courses
Grilled vegetables salad (courgete, eggplant, red onion) with burrata cheese
Grilled chicken with BBQ sauce, honey and hot sauce
Grilled octopus with grapefruit and dill sauce
Mexican salad
Roasted chuck calf with cherry and hazelnut chutney

Dessert
Grilled peach, basil icecream and carob cookie

What will it be next?

Wanna find out what is a Gourmet BBQ?

So do we!

We've been working on the concept. Does gourmet mean fancy, or can we have finger food? Is it even possible to have a BBQ without finger food? Well... we like finger food.

This means that we have the date for the next session. We're having a sunday lunch supper club session.

And this time we are doing it on the lovely terrace of Pensão Rosinha #1, it will also be an outdoor session.

On the 14th of July.

Send us an email if you want to be part of it, we will love to hear from you.

maryandrose.supperclub@gmail.com

Santos Populares style!

This time we had a predetermined theme for this first official Mary and Rose session: Santos Populares in Lisbon.

During the summer, in the month of June, festivities dedicated to three saints known as Santos Populares take place all over Portugal. Saint Anthony (Santo António) is celebrated on the night of 12th-13 June, especially in Lisbon (where that saint was born and lived most of his life), with Marchas Populares (a street carnival) and other festivities. (from wikipedia)

As in all portuguese popular celebrations, food plays a very important role, Santo António's night in Lisbon just would be the same without sardines. Lots of them, being grilled in the street everywhere. It's a very loud, fun and smelly night. In contrast with this, the other main symbol is the sweet basil (mangerico) usually decorated with a paper flower, and a compulsory quatrain.

All this put together, adding the fact that summer is here, we got inspired to design a session and a menu:

Cocktail
Champareão

Starters
Smoked chicken patty pie with catupiry cheese
Filo squares with goat cheese and fig and laurel jam
Portuguese sardine on corn bread

Palate cleanser
Raspchamp

Main course
Pork ribs with port wine and thyme reduction. baked potatoes with rosemary, watercress with beetroot sprouts, roasted cherry tomatoes

Dessert
sweet bacon fritter with cardamom foam and dried rose petal

To finish the meal we served a home made mandarin liqueur.

the next session is coming...

Yeap... and the date is: june 14th.

We are designing it, and brainstorming on what it will be.

The best part is that we finished session zero with reservations for the next one, and at the time we didn't even knew if there would be a next session.

So we still have some seats, if you would like to be part of a Mary and Rose supper club session, send us an email: maryandrose.supperclub@gmail.com

session zero

Session zero was all that we hoped it would be, and more. It was surprinsingly easy. As it was the experimental session and neither one of has any experience on supper clubs, we really didn't know for sure what to expect. But I guess it's true that when you are doing something you are good at and that you enjoy doing, the result should be positive. Or maybe we're lucky that we love doing something we're good at. 

This session served dinner for 18 people, including us, the hosts. We didn't knew everybody, and the guests didn't all knew each other, but after a few minutes there was chatting all over the guest house.

Our main goal was achieved: to have such a mood where anyone can feel like they’re having dinner with friends, even if they never met before.

The next goal was to serve a meal to experiment new recipes based on the mastery of cooking techniques and wonderful ingredients. The feedback we got says we achieved this one too. 

We found room for improvement, which is good, because it gave us ideas to create the next session.

Here is the menu served in session zero, and don't forget to take a look at the photos.

Starter

Mint marinated mackerel, with gazpacho, black garlic and olive powder

Palate cleanser

Graviola champ

Main course

Champagne tea smoked chicken breast with two potato mash and low temperature roasted veggies

Dessert

Puff pastry with vanilla and dulce de leche with cardamom pineapple

the statement

Mary and Rose | Supper Club is a fusion between two girls named Mariana and a peculiar guest house named Pensão Rosinha.
One of the girls is a chef, in love with the art of constructing a meal, and revealing the best in each ingredient, the other is an HR Geek, in love with everything that gathers people around ideas with good food and wine.
When the two started talking about starting a supper club, the main idea was simple: Let’s create a meal where the chef can have a sandbox to experiment new recipes based on the mastery of cooking techniques and wonderful ingredients.
And it must have such a mood where anyone can feel like they’re having dinner with friends, even if they never met before. Let's do this using what Lisbon has best to offer, the city's cool spirit. Let’s have serendipity with great food and wine... and of course a DJ, because music makes the people come together.

It was clear from the start they needed the right place for this. Pensão Rosinha was the immediate choice. The guest house was carefully designed by Camila and Paulo, they picked every object, sometimes giving it a new life and purpose. The mood in Pensão Rosinha is relaxed, and reflects the best you can get from a real and tasteful Lisbon flat. You feel like a guest staying with friends.

One of the girls is me, the one writting this post.

And so we got session zero going to give it a try, and it did happen!