SEM: When Waste Becomes Gold

Alfama, Lisbon — between what endures and what changes

Alfama still looks like Alfama. Uneven cobblestones, an ancient urban fabric, tiles worn smooth by time. But beneath this almost immutable appearance, the neighbourhood has changed profoundly. Fewer and fewer Portuguese residents remain. The district that survived the 1755 earthquake did not survive Airbnb — more and more houses converted, more and more foreigners opening businesses in a territory that has become, inevitably, global.

It is within this context — not in a romantic Lisbon postcard — that SEM exists.

The door is discreet, almost restrained. Marked by a small illuminated sign: “SEM”. Nothing else. Inside, it quickly becomes clear that this is not just another restaurant adopting sustainability as a narrative device. What happens here is something else entirely. More demanding. And, for many, more uncomfortable.

Who They Are

George McLeod is from New Zealand. Lara Espírito Santo is Brazilian, the daughter of Portuguese parents. They met before working together at SILO in London — the world’s first zero-waste restaurant, founded by Douglas McMaster.

There, Lara — trained in Political Science, with a Master’s degree in Poverty and Sustainable Development and a Grand Diplôme from Le Cordon Bleu — realised that cooking could be a concrete tool for social change. George, with a background in top kitchens in New Zealand and the UK, finally found a way of cooking that made sense beyond the plate, beyond technique, beyond ego.

In 2020, during the pandemic lockdown, they left London. A pop-up on Praia do Pego served as a transition. In August 2021, they opened SEM in Alfama.

Recognition followed: Portugal’s first restaurant to receive Food Made Good — 3 stars from the UK’s Sustainable Restaurant Association; George was awarded One Knife at The Best Chef Awards; international visibility through lists such as Forbes. And yet, none of this truly explains what it feels like to eat here.

Creating Through Absence

“SEM” is not just a name. It is a method. And it is a principle.

The kitchen works exclusively with regenerative agriculture producers — farmers who do not merely avoid pesticides, but actively rebuild soil, sequester carbon and restore living ecosystems. The menu changes constantly, dictated not by the chef’s creative will but by what the land can offer at that precise moment.

George does not buy sea fish. He works only with invasive freshwater species, such as the zander we ate that night. The pork comes from animals raised with time and respect, outside intensive systems. The oysters are Portuguese, from the Sado estuary, chosen for their purity and calibre.

And then there are the ferments.

Spread across the shelves — more laboratory than decoration — are jars of amino sauce made from feijoa skins, egg-white garum, miso produced from leftover bread, pickles, molasses, and reductions. Nothing is discarded. Everything is transformed.

While many fine-dining restaurants around the world celebrate “zero waste” yet remain dependent on long supply chains, plastic packaging and polystyrene, SEM closes the loop with coherence. Vegetable trimmings become a Worcestershire-style sauce. Yesterday’s bread becomes miso butter for today’s bread. There is no printed menu — because paper, too, is waste.

The Room

The space is small, informal, and honest. The décor is the ingredients themselves: fermentation jars, books on regenerative agriculture, bottles of natural wine. There is no mise-en-scène, no desire to impress. The light is low, warm, almost cinematic — that particular Lisbon melancholy that slows time and makes conversations feel more truthful.

The kitchen is open, not as a performance but as a place to share. You watch George and his small brigade working with absolute concentration. No shouting. No tension. Just precision.

Lara runs the dining room with a natural ease that only works when belief is genuine. Her storytelling is short, technical, factual: where the product comes from, who grew it, and how it was treated. There is no moralising. No sermon. Just information. And respect.

It quickly becomes clear that this is a restaurant run by people who are not trying to impress anyone. They are simply working according to what they believe in.

Beginning with the Sea

We began with oysters from the Sado. Generous in size, firm flesh resisting the bite before dissolving into salt and sea. Immediate freshness, almost aggressive. They were accompanied by a house-fermented spicy sauce — not masking the oyster, but sharpening it.

Next came a trio of snacks that clearly signalled what was to follow.

First: peas, unripe green strawberry, loquat pickle bringing acidity without aggression, borage with its almost mentholated vegetal note. Fresh but precise, elegant rather than fragile. A dialogue between raw and barely worked textures — each element retaining its identity. A strong opening.

Second: oyster tempura with umeboshi and samphire. Technically sound, but the least compelling of the three — especially after the brutal freshness of the oyster moments earlier. The frying, however light, added nothing. It subtracted.

Third: apple, cucumber, bread amino and smoked lavender. Lightness returned. Contrast, clarity, and cleanliness of flavour. Smoked lavender as an aromatic signature — perfumed but restrained. It worked.

And then came the bread.

Sourdough, with a crust that shatters and a light crumb that resists the bite without heaviness. Served with miso butter — not just any miso, but miso made from the restaurant’s own leftover bread. The idea is already clever; the result on the palate is brilliant. The butter gains fermented complexity, a gentle umami, an intelligent salinity that demands more bread, more butter — closing the loop.

I could happily eat this every morning.

The Geometry of Zero Waste

The asparagus dish was one of the highlights of the meal. And I say this without hyperbole.

Green asparagus and raw courgette, lacto-fermented white asparagus, orange kosho, false acacia flower set into a gel, nasturtium sauce with feijoa-skin amino. The construction was complex, yet the dish read with clarity: fresh harmony, balance between raw and fermented, acidity and vegetal sweetness. The orange kosho delivered an aromatic kick that woke the palate. The gel added an unexpected textural layer to an already precise composition.

Then came the river fish.

Zander — an invasive species that George chooses to reduce pressure on marine stocks. Skin so crisp it borders on addiction, flesh firm yet succulent, clean river flavour without the muddy note that so often deters Portuguese diners. Sauce and oil complemented rather than dominated. Precise, technical, irreproachable cooking.

Next, the pork. Low-temperature pork neck, rosy at the centre, fat melting on the tongue like warm butter. An animal raised well — the difference between this and industrial pork is immediate. Egg-white garum (saline, complex, almost ancestral) and coffee husk added earthy bitterness and depth.

Alongside it: chickpeas fermented in kombucha, leek, house-made Worcestershire-style sauce. The chickpeas carried a gentle acidity, almost effervescent — cutting through the pork’s richness with elegance and complexity.

A Light Ending

Desserts followed the same logic.

Eucalyptus granita struck the tongue with mentholated cold, sharp rhubarb, physalis with its citrus sweetness, and unripe strawberries, fulfilling a role entirely different from their sweet counterpart. Lovage brought vegetal notes reminiscent of wild celery — refreshing, without unnecessary complexity. It worked exactly as it should: a perfect palate cleanser.

The second dessert was more compelling.

Strawberries with elderflower, toasted buckwheat, fig leaf, and “This Is Not Chocolate” — a product created by Matt Orlando and former colleagues from Amass, made from waste streams, primarily spent grain from beer production, that replicates chocolate’s texture and bitterness without actually being chocolate. It fits seamlessly within the restaurant’s philosophy: global zero waste, minimal environmental footprint.

The balance was precise. Strawberries held centre stage, elderflower added spring-like perfume, and buckwheat delivered toasted depth. The fake chocolate fooled just enough to work — a light, fresh, distinctive finale.

Wine, But…

The natural wine list is solid — Portuguese low-intervention producers alongside a few well-chosen international names. The pairing alternated between wines (Alto da Serra Telúrico Branco worked beautifully with the fish) and international non-alcoholic options — Arensbak White from Denmark paired well with the vegetable-forward asparagus dish.

But it felt disjointed. There was no unifying narrative. We moved between registers — Portuguese natural wine, Scandinavian non-alcoholic — without a clear guiding thread.

And here is the question: if George and Lara already create non-alcoholic pairings from their own ferments and use them successfully in cocktails, why not extend that same coherence to the full menu? It would better align with the philosophy that defines SEM. And, quite possibly, more compelling than the current selection of non-alcoholic wines.

Final Note

At a time when society grows increasingly standardised — when we all claim to want difference yet continue to repeat the same patterns — Lara and George chose to step outside the comfort zone and do things differently. Truly differently.

Everything at SEM feels new. Not because it is recent, but because it is rare — rare in the sense of being original, courageous, necessary. It is a kitchen that forces us to rethink what it means to eat well, to eat consciously, to pay for a meal.

Because when you pay at SEM, you are not simply paying for food. You are financing a regenerative economic model and supporting farmers who rebuild soil. Sustaining a way of working, the industrial system is actively trying to erase.

Let’s be direct: Michelin awards green stars to sustainable restaurants. SEM does not have one. And it is easy to see why. The system still confuses appearing sustainable with being sustainable.

 

Sustainability is not plating beautiful dishes with local ingredients while continuing to rely on industrial suppliers. It is not removing plastic from the dining room while deliveries arrive wrapped in it. It is not a menu section. It is a way of life, of work, and above all, of economics.

SEM gives voice and value to small producers often dismissed for choosing a more challenging path. It creates work. It educates. It proves that another model is possible.

George and Lara are not just cooking.

They are helping build a parallel system to the dominant one and proving that food can exist without exploitation — of land, of people, of animals. And showing that our daily waste can also be our gold.

And along the way, you eat extraordinarily well.

 

SEM is a green star like no other, inspectors.