We love food

Starting up a restaurant now was not our plan

Food is important to us. It adds ambiance to a place. So from the start it was our plan to have a restaurant together in the hotel – or rather, to run the restaurant within the hotel. Like in Kathmandu where Tings Tea Lounge has been a success for almost 10 years.

But to focus on the hotel in the beginning we decided to support a young local girl by renting out the restaurant to her on very favorable conditions.

Unfortunately she couldn’t handle it and left everything. So on top of our other problems with closing down Kathmandu, keeping Lisbon alive and dealing with a disastrous economy in general – we suddenly had to find a way to get the restaurant up and running again. Our location at Lisbon’s most popular Miradouro and our spacious garden is perfect for groups who want to dine together without getting crowded. People have been knocking on our doors for weeks to get in. We only have two problems: No money and no staff.

Why don’t mom and I come down and help you start up the restaurant?

With a little help from our friends

One day Mag sent me a message. She is one of our colleagues from our Carlsberg days in the 90’s. She and her Brazilian Mom Nanci were planning to move to Lisbon from London. Why don’t we come and help you with the restaurant she wrote me a month ago.

Why not? 

Mag knows Tings. She stayed with us just after we opened and she has experience in working in restaurants and hotels. And even better: Nanci is an experienced chef. She has worked in restaurants since 1979 where she started at Ida Davidsen in Copenhagen

Smørrebrød – we shall make SMØRREBRØD

Thomas when he woke up on Wednesday 3rd June 2020

Smørrebrød wasn’t on our plan either

Sometimes there are things that are meant to be… you just don’t understand the signs or signals.

The menu Nanci and Mag thought they were going to work with had nothing to do with Smørrebrød – or Danish food for that matter.

We were planning to make Tings Food based on our experience from Kathmandu and our insight in the traveling community that stays with us: non Portuguese food, based on local ingredients – dishes from all over the world.

The day before Nanci and Mag arrived we were talking about new food trends with a friend from London – about a very popular Danish restaurant in London Rye & Snaps who is specialised in New Nordic cuisine – but only Smørrebrød.

During our talk I googled Smørrebrød and I was surprised to see how popular it is. And not only that – it is surprising to see how it has changed… for the better: new ingredients , better quality, healthier, beautiful… EVERYTHING was different from the traditional smørrebrød I remembered.

But the biggest surprise of them all: The media coverage – all important media from all over the world has written about Smørrebrød. And almost all stories mention the same chefs – and one of them is always mentioned as the Goddess or Queen of Smørrebrød: Ida Davidsen – the woman whom taught Nanci everything she knows today and made Nanci the Head Chef of her restaurant in Sao Paulo.

So wouldn’t it be too stupid not to follow all these hints? Especially since the rules and strategies we follow are our own.

We broke the rules and changed our food strategy in the car on the way to Spain the day the border opened and called Mag and Nanci and told them to forget all the recipes we had send them until then. From that moment we had Smørrebrød on our minds.

And from Thursday the 23rd of July on the menu at Tings Lisbon.

Thomas