My Portugal

George Mendes is the chef and owner of Aldea, his Portuguese-inflected restaurant, in New York City and a fast-rising culinary star. He spent nearly twenty years honing his natural talent under the guidance of some of the world’s greatest chefs before opening Aldea in May 2009. Mendes’s restaurant won a star rating from the 2011 and 2012 Michelin Guides. Mendes received one of the industry’s most coveted honors when he was named one of Food & Wine magazine’s ten “Best New Chefs.” Genevieve Ko is food writer whose work appears in cookbooks, magazines, websites and digital and social media

“One of my favorite chefs has at last written a delicious tome that evokes the delicate balance between fantasy travel to the western Mediterranean and local farming in the USA. The poetic recipes and the mellifluous prose inspire me to shop, to sing fados, and to celebrate and cook these alternately exotic and recognizable simple and evocative dishes for my family. This book makes me hungry for a visit to both Aldea in NYC and the Algarve [in Portugal] and will immediately join my kitchen library on the ‘use now and forever’ shelf.”