Australian Cuisine Guide

Australian Restaurant in Lisbon: What Real Aussie Food Looks Like

April 2026 · 6 min read

If you think Australian food means Vegemite on toast and meat pies, you're about 30 years behind. Modern Australian cuisine is one of the most interesting things happening in food right now - and Lisbon finally has a place that does it properly.

There's a reason you don't see many Australian restaurants outside Australia. It's not a cuisine that translates easily. The ingredients are hard to source. The flavour profile sits somewhere between European fine dining and pan-Asian street food. And most people still think "Australian food" means throwing a shrimp on the barbie.

What Australian Cuisine Actually Is

Australia is fusion by geography. Sitting between Europe and Asia, with waves of immigration from Italy, Greece, Vietnam, Thailand, and China over the past 70 years, Australian cooking evolved into something distinct.

What defines it:

• ▸Asian influence - Soy, miso, ginger, chilli, sesame. These aren't garnishes, they're foundational.
• ▸European technique - French sauces, Italian pasta-making, British roasting methods. The structure is Western.
• ▸Native ingredients - Kangaroo, barramundi, bush tomato, finger lime. Proteins and produce you can't get anywhere else.
• ▸Relaxed presentation - It's fine dining that doesn't take itself too seriously. Flavour first, theatrics second.

If you've been to Thailand or Vietnam and then to France or Italy, Australian food sits right in the middle. Bold flavours, refined execution, zero pretension.

Why Australian Restaurants Are Rare in Europe

Opening an Australian restaurant in Lisbon is harder than it sounds. Most of the signature ingredients don't exist here. Kangaroo has to be imported frozen from Australia. Barramundi isn't native to European waters. Bush tomato and finger lime cost a fortune to ship.

The cooking style is also tough to replicate. Australian chefs grow up cooking with Asian ingredients - they learn to balance soy with citrus, miso with butter, chilli with sweetness. That's second nature in Sydney or Melbourne. In Lisbon? You're starting from scratch.

Which is why Downunder by Justin Jennings is the only Australian restaurant in Portugal. It takes an Australian chef who actually knows the cuisine - not someone trying to recreate it from a cookbook.

What You'll Find at Lisbon's Australian Restaurant

Downunder runs two tasting menus - 5 courses (€70) and 7 courses (€85). Every dish is Australian-Asian fusion. Nothing on the menu looks or tastes like anything else in Lisbon.

Signature dishes include:

• ▸Kangaroo tartar with truffled caviar - The protein tastes like lean venison, but richer. Paired with truffle and caviar, it's one of the most decadent starters you'll eat in Lisbon.
• ▸Salt & pepper squid - A Melbourne pub classic elevated to fine dining. Crispy, spicy, with a soy-lime dipping sauce.
• ▸Ceviche with ginger espuma - Portuguese fish, Peruvian technique, Australian Asian twist.
• ▸36-hour pork belly with lime caramel - Sweet, sour, fatty, crispy. This is what happens when you cook pork low and slow, then hit it with Vietnamese-style caramel.
• ▸Sticky date pudding - The Australian dessert. Toffee sauce, vanilla ice cream, and a cake that's so rich you'll understand why it's a national obsession.

Wine pairing is Portuguese and international bottles matched to each course. The kangaroo gets a Douro red. The squid gets a crisp Vinho Verde. The sticky date gets a tawny port.

The Chef Behind Downunder

Justin Jennings is Australian. He spent 20+ years cooking in Sydney, Melbourne, and Southeast Asia before moving to Lisbon. He's the inaugural World Cook Champion - a competition on Amazon Prime where chefs compete across five countries.

Downunder opened in Santos (Lisbon) in 2023 and earned MICHELIN Guide Selected status in 2024, 2025, and 2026. It's now rated 4.8 stars on TripAdvisor with 717+ reviews and sits at #107 out of 5,381 restaurants in Lisbon.

If you want to know what modern Australian food tastes like, this is the only place in Portugal doing it right.

Is Australian Food Worth Trying?

If you like bold flavours - yes. If you're curious about fusion done well - absolutely. If you're bored of the same Portuguese tasting menus every restaurant in Lisbon serves - this will wake your palate up.

Australian cuisine isn't subtle. It's not minimalist. It's not "letting the ingredient speak for itself." It's about layering flavours, balancing sweet with sour, fat with acid, heat with richness. Every course at Downunder hits multiple notes at once.

The crowd here is a mix of Australians looking for a taste of home, food-savvy locals who know Downunder's reputation, and travellers who want something different from the usual Lisbon dining scene. If you fall into any of those categories, book a table.

Australian food in Lisbon is no longer theoretical. It's real, it's MICHELIN-selected, and it's waiting for you in Santos.

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