Chef Paloma Calmelet

We highly recommend Chef Paloma! We were a group of 7 who love food and good people, and had the honor of her as our dinner chef for one evening in Portugal. She is personable, hospitable, and incredibly talented. Every dish in her thoughtful and diverse menu was high quality, delicious, and creative. We were so lucky that the menu also included some local Portuguese inspired dishes too. Chef Paloma was so well prepared, putting in an immense amount of prep work in advance so that the meal could be whipped up within an hour at our random Airbnb location. Some group comments include, "This is the amazing type of food you get when someone with this much talent has the freedom to cook what they enjoy." "There was a lot of butter." (<--The majority response to the butter comment was, “Speak for yourself.”) “How did our kitchen get so clean?” "This was the best meal on this trip." "We should've booked her for the first night so we could’ve had more time to eat leftovers." We only wish we could enjoy more of her food, and are so appreciative of how she went above and beyond she went to give us an incredible and memorable experience. Our particular dinner menu included: * Apps: Beef tartar with smoked egg yolk cream and ramson capers; cured sardines and herbed cream; and homemade sourdough bread with creamy, round local olive oil. I could just eat a whole plate of the beef tartar with a full piping bag of that smoked egg yolk cream. * Starters: Sea bream ceviche with homemade carrot vinegar and lime oil; roasted squash salad with chickpeas, red cabbage and herbs; and roasted beet salad with onions, browned butter, and smoked bone marrow. Both of those salads were divine. Who knew prickly pear could be a vinaigrette. Of course, she made that herself too. Regarding the beet salad, I actually want to just swim in a vat of it. Not kidding. This is coming from a normal carnivore too. * Mains: Squid with persillade (butter with herbs, garlic, oil, etc.) and this was cooked so perfectly with the squid still being tender; roasted chicken (I don’t recall spices and herbs were used, which is sad because it was so good); pork alentejana (a traditional Portuguese dish with clams); butter roasted carrots with courb honey and rosemary; and roasted crispy sweet potatoes. * Dessert: Polenta cake with roasted plums in fine port reduction, and vanilla whipped cream.

Paloma was an incredible chef. The food was excellent, higher quality than in any restaurant. Locally sourced ingredients with attention to detail. Would definitely recommend Paloma for an evening whatever the occasion. True perfection from start to finish.

My family have only the highest praises for Chef Paloma! In addition to cooking breakfast for us every morning of our week stay in the Algarve, she made 4 full dinners and a few lunches. She is entirely professional with amazing attention to detail, extremely organized, on time, well prepared, and cleaned up completely after every meal. She presented a very well thought out menu proposal, and welcomed all feedback and requests. She only used the very best and freshest local ingredients, and we were treated at every meal to her amazing jams, kimchi, hot sauces and other preserves, all really the best ever!!! Every single meal she prepared was a huge treat for all of our multi generational family, as was her homemade bread/s at every meal. Amazing desserts.. she spoiled us, and any restaurant we went to paled in comparison to her cooking. Paloma is super friendly and kind, a pleasure to have around... we miss her already!

Paloma was an excellent chef, the food and presentations were amazing! She was extremely self-going in our kitchen and left it in better shape than before. 5/5