Food tours and cultural experiences run by locals.
What do we all have in common? Our endless love for food, people, traveling, culture, and contemporary Portugal plus a constant will to explore and desire to share it!
Silvia Olivença
Founder, food host, clinical psychologist and anthropologist
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I was born in Alfama, the oldest district in Lisbon where I spent my childhood and adolescence. I started to live abroad at the age of 24 and I never stopped traveling again. But no matter where I traveled, I always returned to Lisbon. I lived in France, Morocco, and Turkey either doing voluntary work or clinical and anthropological research.
My love for food, namely Portuguese food, got stronger after my first year abroad and it evolved until I became a foodie. I am a cook without cultural limits and have been a food host since 2016, in Lisbon, where I designed all these experiences for you, in order to share my main passions of people, traveling, and connecting the treasures of Portugal’s food, culture, and people.
I graduated in Clinical Psychology and Psychoanalysis, but then I felt the need to explore some clinical questions and to expand from the psychiatric/psychological model, so I was fortunate to receive a scholarship to do a Ph.D. in Anthropology. Presently, as a complementary activity to the food tours, my clinical research is mainly dedicated to migrants and refugees, but I have also research interests in food culture, esthetics, and the Arabic culture/language.
Photography is also another passion of mine that has accompanied me since my adolescence. I am also a co-founder of EBANO Collective an art association combining street arts, anthropologists aiming to do street art interventions with a social and ethnographica base.
What my team and I love about Lisbon is the fact of being a European capital city and yet in some moments, places and experiences, it doesn’t look like one. It’s a human-size city. You are always a walkable distance from several districts and Lisbon has European elements, but also North African and Mediterranean influences, either in the culture, the architecture but also in the people.
The food scene is so diverse and has evolved so much during the last 15 years. It’s cosmopolitan yet has an eclectic natural personality. It’s safe to be everywhere, literally, everywhere and you are close to dozens of different beaches and landscapes.
My favorite travellers (also writers): Ryszaed Kapuskinsky (1932-2007), Annemarie Schwarzenbach (1908-1942), Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904), Ella Maillart (1902-1997), Alexandra David-Néel (1868-1869).
My favorite movies about Lisbon: In the White City, Lisbon Story.
Thais Medeiros
Food host and beer expert.
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Born in Brazil with Portuguese roots, Thais has been coming to Lisbon every summer since she was 6 years old. Raised between multiple cities in both Brazil and the USA, Thais was sure of only one thing. That was, no matter what city she found herself in, her summers would be spent in amazing Lisbon.
Lisbon has been her longest love affair and 5 years ago she made it official by moving over and totally embracing the Lisboeta life.
Her love for the local food and passion for discovering new restaurants made her understand how powerful sharing a table with someone can be.
For her a table is a sacred place and that the only thing bigger than her love for food is her love for sharing it with others.So after, she settled roots in Lisbon, she founded a new passion: to be a Food Host at Oh! My Cod Food Tours!
For Thais, local food & people are the best way to experience Portugal, its history, and its life. She is also the host of a Beer Tasting Experience since 2018 and she is the founder of Petisca where she composes the most delicious and beautiful food boards in Lisbon.
Thais’ favorite thing to do in Lisbon is to wake up on a Saturday morning go for a walk around the Graca neighborhood and go to Feira da Ladra, her favorite flea market. After intentionally ‘getting lost’ in Alfama, she chooses a tiny restaurant that sells nice grilled sardines or any fresh local fish. After that, she gets the tram to Belém and checks the modern Berardo Museum.
Out of Lisbon, she loves to explore Sintra. Even though Sintra is home to the most beautiful castles and gardens that she has seen, what she mostly likes about the place is the natural landscapes and the diversity. You can find a beautiful beach, a dense forest, or a hidden waterfall within less than 30 mins from each other by car. For her, this is a bit of heaven on earth.
Apart from being a host at Oh! My Cod Tours, Thais created her own small business, named Pestica, during pandemic times, in 2020, to diminish the distance between people, local producers, and small shops, while coping with the quarantine measures.
She prepares and delivers in Lisbon, beautiful and amazing cheese, ham, and vegan boards all made with local products from small producers.
Thais speaks Portuguese and English. You can follow her on Instagram.
Darida Rodrigues
Food host and natural wine expert.
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Darida Rodrigues is a Brazilian/Portuguese film art director & multimedia artist, born and raised in vibrant São Paulo, passionate about multiculturalism, food, wine, coffee, and music. She decided to set roots in Lisbon four years ago.
During her creations and art studies in Lisbon, she found a new passion: to be a Food Host! She is very engaged in the gastronomic and cultural scene of the city, especially those related to natural food and drink.
She also leads an experience dedicated to Coffee and Music.
Among her favorite places in Lisbon she mentions Senhor Uva, a small, creative, and tasty food restaurant with a long list of natural wines and the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum.
Not far from Lisbon, on the other side of the river Tejo, she recommends Casa da Cerca, in Almada, a cultural center, that is located next to a Botanical Garden and has one of the best sunset views of Lisbon.
For her, local food & people are the best way to experience Portugal, its history, and its life.
Darida speaks English and Portuguese. You can follow her on Instagram.
Adriana Schmidt
Food host, entrepreneur and minimalist.
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A Brazilian mutt born and raised in cosmopolitan São Paulo, Brazil, to parents of Portuguese, Italian, Swiss and German descent, Adriana can be considered an interesting case of “home is where the heart is.” With a degree in Hotel Administration & Hospitality from the prestigious Hotel School at Cornell University, Adriana opened her own ecotourism agency on the idyllic island of Fernando de Noronha in the Northeast of Brazil when she turned 25-years-old.
Passionate about all things nature, the environment and animals and having lived full time on an island for more than 10 years, she loves to SCUBA dive, swim in the sea and nature walks. But in search for better quality of life combined with a burning curiosity about her Portuguese roots, Adriana moved to Lisbon in 2015, and now can clearly see how her Portuguese lineage is very much part of her modern identity.
The pandemic and a divorce was the nudge she needed to take to the van lifestyle, transitioning to full-time living in her campervan – named Gaia – in May 2020. She now happily pursues a more minimalist and eco-friendly lifestyle with a smaller carbon footprint and a mostly “off-grid” existence.
Being a host for Oh! My Cod allows her to explore her new passions: slow-food and Portuguese history and culture while honoring family-owned businesses and meeting people from all corners of the world. And all of this in the country that embraced her after a little over a century of both her maternal grandparents having departed for a new life in Brazil. Adriana has come full-circle.
Natacha Dias
Food host, skipper and fisherwoman.
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Natacha is a Portuguese certified local skipper, who was born one hour from Lisbon in Sesimbra a small fishing village in front of the sea.
Her life is all about fishing, growing vegetables in her father’s vegetable-garden, cooking, and selecting the best products to share with friends and her guests. She is a fisherwoman and local skipper, but also passionate about Portuguese wines which she explores informally.
Her love and knowledge for wine started already during her childhood when, during harvest time, she headed up to Porto, to her mother’s family house to pick the grapes and produce wine and Aguardente (firewater).
Even if she was not allowed to drink (yet!) all those experiences built the basis for her current pleasure in tasting and exploring Portuguese wines.
She is also a great cook! Besides cooking with fresh fish, she is an expert on all the ‘conventual’ desserts – Abade de Priscos, Farófias, Pastel de Nata, and much more – creating magic with amazing free range eggs from her father’s small farm!
For all these reasons, she became the perfect Oh! My Cod Tours host in diner and sailing experiences!
Natacha speaks English, and Portuguese. You can follow her on Instagram.
Zara Quiroga
Food writer and cook
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Portuguese travel and food writer. Besides being the author of “Lisbon in 100 Bites”, she’s also the creator of Portugal’s only Pastel de Nata baking workshop to take place inside a real working bakery. At Oh! My Cod Zara leads gastronomic experiences in Lisbon. Recently Silvia managed to convince Zara that there’s something truly special about Pico island and, after sharing many stories, she decided to travel there herself and finally join the Oh! My Cod Pico Experience too.
NAZARE TOURISM
If you wish to explore the northern beaches and the center of Portugal, like Nazare, the peculiar and beautiful Almorol Castle and other hidden treasures, you must contact Amylee! She plans amazing road trips and she guides in the best way.
TWIN PEAKS DIVING CENTER |PICO
These guys rock ! An established SDI 5 Star Dive Centre, SSI, TDI and BSAC Dive Centre with a full range of diving courses, lessons and daily dive trips to the best diving sites around the central group of the Azores. And the name…Twin Peaks (a ‘joke’ with Pico Island and montain). How can we resist?