Oh! My Cod is a food tour company from Lisbon, working since 2016 in Lisbon, Setúbal, the Alentejo and the Azores. This shop is its online counter: guides, food and a few objects, from the same people who run the tours.
It started in 2016
Silvia Olivença was born and raised in Alfama, the oldest district in Lisbon. She graduated in Clinical Psychology and Psychoanalysis, then took a scholarship for a Ph.D. in Anthropology. She had been taking friends around the city to eat for years. In 2016 she opened that to travellers, and it grew step by step.
Silvia Olivença, founder. Born in Alfama, trained in psychology and anthropology.The first way to get to know our country is through its food. The second, is to join us!
Silvia Olivença, from the Oh! My Cod manifesto
Since then the team has welcomed over 15,000 guests. The Original Lisbon Food & Wine Tour, the one that opened the company, still runs: four food stops, three districts, seventeen tastings. It is one of the world’s Top Rated Gastronomic Experiences on Airbnb, with more than 5,000 five-star reviews.
Why there is a shop
Oh! My Cod describes itself as ethnographic food tours, culinary trips and a food research lab. The shop is the newest part, and it comes out of a funded internationalisation project: reaching travellers and readers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany and French-speaking countries, and building the digital infrastructure to serve them.
What you find here: three written guides, to Lisbon, to the Alentejo and to slow food travel in Portugal; two food products, black garlic and Alentejo table olives; and objects carrying the brand’s hybrid creatures — an apron, a t-shirt, a tote bag, a pin set and a tea towel. The signature on the logo reads “A new species of tour. Est. 2016.” The creatures come from there.
How we work
Slow food travel: meetings and exchanges, in small groups.These are the principles Oh! My Cod states for its food and travel experiences. The shop is held to the same list.
- Slow food travel. A model made of meetings and exchanges, in small groups.
- Locally owned businesses only.
- Food biodiversity, and a diverse and inclusive perspective.
- Glocal. Local communities are understood better when you locate them in a global context.
- Critical thinking, applied to everyday life and to history and culture.
- Only the best will do.
Alfama. The same shops, the same people, year after year.We build invisible bridges.
Oh! My Cod, About Us
The regions we work in
Lisbon first: Alfama, Baixa, Mouraria, Bairro Alto, the Castelo. Then Setúbal, a day away, with its market, its fish port and its producers. In the Azores, the island of Pico, where the vines grow inside UNESCO-listed stone walls, and São Jorge, with its cheese. In the Alentejo, Arraiolos, where the Monte dos Arrifes project will rehabilitate a house as a place to stay, kept inside the natural and cultural landscape of the region.
Pico, Azores. Vines inside UNESCO-listed basalt walls.
Alentejo. Talha wine, made the way it has been made for two thousand years.The Anthropological Food Lab
The lab: recipes treated as oral histories, ingredients studied for the journeys they have taken.Oh! My Cod founded the Anthropological Food Lab, a creative research space where chefs, anthropologists, farmers and local communities work on the cultural, emotional and historical meanings of food. Part kitchen, part archive, part storytelling studio. Recipes are treated as oral histories. Ingredients are studied for the journeys they have taken across oceans, generations and landscapes.
The company also publishes Tasteory, its food and culture journal, alongside the food research section. The three guides sold in this shop come out of the same work.
The people behind it
Food experts and cultural mediators. Seven people, one table.What they have in common, in their own words: an endless love for food, people, traveling, culture, and contemporary Portugal.
- Silvia Olivença. Founder, food host, clinical psychologist and anthropologist. Born in Alfama, lived in France, Morocco and Turkey, co-founder of the EBANO Collective.
- Marina Caetano. Food host, adventurer, small farmer and mother of two. Grew up by the Castelo, spent seventeen years abroad in London and Morzine, returned in 2021.
- Lívia Guimarães. Food host and personal chef, from Porto Alegre, Brazil.
- Julia Novack. Food host and production manager, from Brooklyn, New York. Moved to Lisbon in March 2020.
- Natacha Dias. Chef, skipper and fisherwoman. Trained at the Escola de Turismo e Hotelaria de Lisboa, cooked at Taberna da Rua das Flores, Antiga Camponesa, Muralha Tasca Tipica and at the Azores Wine Company on Pico.
- Zara Quiroga. Food writer, vegan and cook. Author of “Lisbon in 100 Bites”.
- Rodrigo Furtado. Food host and musician, born in Lisbon, with a music degree taken on a scholarship in England.
Awards and certifications
National Tourism Award 2024. Five projects distinguished; ours in Gastronomic Tourism.- Best Gastronomic project, 2024. National Tourism Award, sixth edition, promoted by Turismo de Portugal, Expresso, BPI and Deloitte. The award distinguished five projects, in Authentic, Gastronomic, Inclusive, Innovative and Sustainable Tourism. The other finalists that year were Desarma, Vinha Boutique Hotel, Malhadinha Nova and Hotel 1980.
- Best Cultural and Landscape Touring project, 2023. Ibérico Heritage Awards and AR&PA Bienal Ibérica de Património Cultural.
- Clean & Safe. Certification granted by Turismo de Portugal to all our food, walking and sightseeing tours.
- Licensed by Turismo de Portugal.
- Airbnb Superhost.
- Slow Food International.
Funded projects
Every project starts the same way: a table with strangers around it.- Açores 2030 and Construir 2030. “Gastronomic Day Tours and Multi-day Trips to the Triangle Islands, Azores”. The project promotes encounters with Azorean culture, highlights local products and producers, and includes a local accommodation.
- Alentejo 2030, Sistema de Incentivos de Base Territorial. “Monte dos Arrifes, Alojamento Local”, promoted by Silvia Olivença Unipessoal, Lda., in Arraiolos.
- Internationalisation via e-commerce. The project this shop belongs to.
Co-financed by Açores 2030 and the Governo dos Açores, Alentejo 2030, Portugal 2030, the PRR and the Republica Portuguesa, and the European Union, NextGenerationEU.
Talk to us
Phone and WhatsApp: +351 967 438 370. Email: portugal@ohmycodtours.com.
The tours are at ohmycodtours.com, in English, Portuguese and French. The Azores experiences have their own site at azores.ohmycodtours.com.
