Alvarinho Under an Oak Tree

How lockdown led a couple from Bordeaux to open Insaciável which might be Lisbon’s most charming wine bar.

Words by Nicolas Payne-Baader
Images by Harriet Langford

Wander up the steeply winding streets of Santos in Lisbon and you might be lucky enough to find yourself at Insaciavel. Candlelit tables are neatly arranged along the limestone mosaiced pavement under the cool canopy of an oak tree. Glasses of wine, plates of oysters and an array of snacks flow out of the open door. On chilly evenings the interior has the kind of coziness normally only brought on by your fourth glass of wine.

This shop, bar and restaurant is the brainchild of Caroline Bos and Arnaud Quinty. Both hailing from Bordeaux they were working in hotels in Lisbon when the pandemic hit. Suddenly both unemployed and having always harboured dreams of opening their own bar they would pass by a small, and usually empty, Portuguese restaurant with a lovely terrace every day as they wandered into town. “One day we passed it and saw that it’s gone. Boom, we knew we had to do it here.” says Caroline.

This part of Santos is a melting pot in a city which has seen huge change over the last decade. A cascade of ‘digital nomads’ has entered the centre of town alongside increased tourism and a wave of air bnb’s. Santos sits right on the edge of several competing visions of the future of Lisbon. “In this part you have the French embassy so you have a lot of expat people living here and even more after Covid” explains Arnaud “we were living just up the hill in Madragoa, which is the one street above a very popular neighbourhood, very Portuguese. It was super important to us when