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The kitchens in the Algarve Chef Experience restaurants are always bustling.

Where the many flavours meet

Algarve Chef Experience
MAR Shopping
Loulé, Portugal

All over the world, there’s one thing that, more than everything else, brings people together: food.

Friends meet to grab a coffee and catch up about their lives, families get some together time enjoying a good meal, and lovebirds take a bite of romanticism out of house.

Eating and drinking are activities that receive a lot of attention in our meeting places. And, at Ingka Centres, we like to think differently and come up with off-beat ideas that give people extra reasons to eat out.

In this line of thought, our co-workers at MAR Shopping in Loulé (Portugal) created the “Algarve Chef Experience”, a one-of-a-kind concept that combines extraordinary dishes with ordinary prices.

Pans at work in the kitchen of chef Guy Doré’s G’s Bistro.

Visitors to MAR Shopping have a choice of four haute cuisine restaurants headed by starred chefs that take care of the variety of the menus and select the ingredients for their quality and freshness.

Steak tartare, country chicken, liver paté or crispy prawns are just some of the mouthwatering dishes Chef Guy Doré serves in his classic French cuisine-inspired G’s Bistro. In Guy’s pots and pans, Dijon mustard, cream, herbes de Provence and French cheeses meet Algarvean fruits and vegetables, all accompanied by local wines and artisanal beers.

More exotic sweet and sour flavours with a spicy twist, are just a step away from G’s Bistro. At Thai Brás, 25 years of professional and academic experience have taught starred Chef Leonel Pereira how to skillfully blend Asian flavours with typical Mediterranean ingredients like onions, olive oil, garlic and laurel.

“There is an interesting parallel here with IKEA, since one of the challenges of these chefs is to set an affordable price and, from there, develop gastronomic offerings for every taste and wallet.”

Herman Gewert, MAR Shopping Algarve Manager
A My Pastta chef preparing fresh handmade spaghetti.

As the name already reveals, the My Pastta is all about pasta – and traditional Italian cuisine, of course. Beautifully presented in the restaurant’s window displays, freshly handmade spaghetti, tagliatelle and all sorts of shorter cuts are ready to be picked and chosen, and then dressed with classic Italian sauces from Chef Louis Anjos’ secret recipe book.

Co-workers busy in the Portuguese Lab’s kitchen preparing dishes.
Co-workers busy in the Portuguese Lab’s kitchen preparing dishes.

Finally, for an all-Portuguese experience, The Portuguese Lab headed by Chef José Domingos celebrates cod and other typical produce from the area, mastering traditional local recipes.

As Chef Leonel Pereira puts it, the Algarve Chef Experience is all about “breaking the repetitive choice in shopping-centre food courts”. And by making haute cuisine accessible to the many people, we have also added an important value to our business.


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