If you were to ask 10-year-old Antonio, our Oporto founder his deepest aspirations, he would have said, “have my own restaurant”. An unusual response from a Portuguese country boy. He would fulfil this dream 15 years later when he landed in his new home, Bondi Beach, Australia.
Antonio introduced Bondi to an unpretentious new style of food, with fresh, fiery and intense flavours of citrus, garlic and chilli. He cooked his chicken using his traditional Portuguese charcoal method ‘Churrasco’. Australia loved a barbie, but they’d never had it this way.
Oporto was born but it wasn’t an overnight success. Amongst his first loyal customers were the Bondi lifeguards and it was the lifeguards and surfing locals who inspired and co-created the Bondi Burger, which you could eat in one hand while holding a surfboard in the other.
Oporto has never been fast food, it’s slow food, served fast. The flame grilled chicken and legendary sauce would become as iconic as Bondi Beach itself.
Antonio always says “Oporto was never my place, it was and still is the people’s, it’s their table and their food we make.”
Oporto is your place, not ours.