Downunder by Justin Jennings

Australian Cooking in a City That Rarely Sees It

Lisbon's restaurant scene has spent the past decade consolidating around a core identity: creative Portuguese cooking, often referencing the Atlantic, frequently citing the country's rural larder, and increasingly recognised by Michelin. At the starred end of that spectrum, rooms like Belcanto, CURA, and Eleven operate at the €€€€ tier and frame Portuguese identity through a fine-dining lens. Against that backdrop, an Australian contemporary kitchen appearing in the Santos neighbourhood — at the more moderate €€ price point — represents a genuine departure from the city's dominant dining logic.

Australian contemporary cuisine is a category that travels poorly. In Sydney or Melbourne, its grammar is broadly understood: influences drawn from Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and Indigenous food traditions, assembled with a technical fluency borrowed from European kitchens. Outside Australia, the cuisine rarely gets a dedicated room, let alone one that works at a serious level. That makes Downunder by Justin Jennings , at R. dos Industriais 21 , a relatively unusual proposition not just within Lisbon, but within European dining more broadly. For a point of comparison closer to the source, Sixpenny in Stanmore represents the genre in its home context; the Lisbon iteration, by contrast, filters that sensibility through the lens of a kitchen operating far from its reference points, in a city with its own strong culinary expectations.

The Room and the Register

The address in Santos, Lisbon's quieter design and gallery quarter between Bairro Alto and Alcântara, signals something about the register the restaurant is aiming for. Santos has attracted a cohort of independent, often owner-operated restaurants and bars that operate outside the tourist-facing circuits of Baixa and Chiado. The neighbourhood's pace is unhurried; its dining rooms tend toward the unpretentious. Downunder fits that character. The kitchen here does not present itself as a high-concept exercise in cross-cultural positioning. The approach is described, in Michelin's own framing, as unpretentious , a word that carries real weight in a city where the dining room as theatrical statement has become increasingly common at the upper tier.

The format offers both à la carte and two set menus, which places it in a middle ground between the tasting-menu-only format that dominates Lisbon's Michelin-starred rooms and the fully flexible, drop-in dining of the city's casual end. That structure gives first-time visitors a navigated entry point while preserving the option to order freely , a practical consideration worth noting for groups with divergent appetites or dietary priorities.

What the Menu Signals About the Cuisine

Australian contemporary cooking at its more adventurous end engages with proteins that European kitchens rarely touch. Crocodile and kangaroo both appear on the menu here , not as novelty items framed for shock value, but as part of a broader argument about what Australian cuisine actually encompasses. Kangaroo, for context, is a lean red meat with a lower fat content than most European game; crocodile sits closer to firm white fish in texture than to conventional meat. Neither ingredient maps easily onto the Portuguese palate, which skews toward seafood, pork, and lamb as its primary protein registers.

This creates an interesting dynamic for Lisbon diners accustomed to the kitchen intelligence of a room like 50 Seconds from Martin Berasategui or the creative Portuguese framing at 2Monkeys. At Downunder, the reference points are different in kind, not just degree. The cuisine being illuminated here has its own lineage, its own sourcing logic, and its own internal coherence , it simply requires a different interpretive frame from the diner.

For those who want to extend the exploration of Australian contemporary outside Portugal, Heh in Phuket represents another outpost of the genre operating in a similarly unexpected geography.

Michelin Recognition and What It Implies

A Michelin Plate in both 2024 and 2025 indicates consistent kitchen quality without the formal distinction of a star. In Michelin's taxonomy, the Plate signals that the inspector found cooking worthy of attention , food prepared with good ingredients and a competent hand , without reaching the level of technical precision or conceptual coherence required for star consideration. In Lisbon, where the full starred tier runs from one star (as at Eleven) to two stars (as at Belcanto), the Plate positions Downunder as serious without being aspirational in the tasting-menu sense.

That distinction matters for how you approach the booking. This is not a room where you are being guided through a highly choreographed sequence; it is a room where the food is the point, the format is flexible, and the price bracket remains accessible relative to what Michelin attention usually implies in this city. Across Portugal more broadly, the range of Michelin-recognised cooking spans everything from Vila Joya in Albufeira to Casa de Chá da Boa Nova in Leça da Palmeira to Il Gallo d'Oro in Funchal , Downunder by Justin Jennings sits in that constellation as one of the more formally unusual entries, on the basis of cuisine category rather than ambition level.

Drinks and the Question of the Wine List

Australian contemporary cuisine presents a specific challenge for wine pairing that the European dining tradition does not encounter often. A kitchen working with kangaroo, crocodile, and ingredients drawn from a Pacific-influenced larder does not automatically map onto the Douro or the Alentejo. The interesting editorial question, here, is whether the drinks program at Downunder works with or around the cuisine's reference points.

Portuguese wine is among the most underrated in Europe at the price-to-quality ratio , a point that applies whether you are eating at a starred Lisbon table or at a €€ neighbourhood room. The Alentejo, in particular, produces reds that carry enough weight and structure to hold against game proteins, which creates a plausible bridge between the local cellar and the exotic proteins on the plate. Whether the wine list here exploits that connection or takes a more eclectic, internationally-sourced approach is a question worth raising with the room before ordering. For a deeper understanding of what Portuguese wine can offer in the context of a serious meal, The Yeatman in Vila Nova de Gaia remains the reference point for cellar depth and regional curation in Portugal. Antiqvvm in Porto offers another angle on how Portuguese wine integrates with a creative kitchen. At Downunder, the pairing conversation is arguably more open-ended , which is itself an opportunity rather than a gap.

Planning Your Visit

Downunder by Justin Jennings is on R. dos Industriais 21 in the Santos quarter, within walking distance of the waterfront and a short ride from Chiado. The restaurant holds a Google rating of 4.7 across 835 reviews , a volume that indicates genuine footfall rather than a tight circle of loyalists, and a score that suggests consistent execution across a wide range of visits. At the €€ price tier, it is positioned to draw both curious locals and visitors who want something outside the Portuguese-identity kitchens that dominate Lisbon's better-regarded rooms. Contact details and current hours are leading confirmed directly before visiting, as the restaurant's operational specifics were not available at time of writing.

For a fuller picture of where Downunder sits in relation to the rest of the city's dining offer, our full Lisbon restaurants guide covers the range from casual to starred. If you are also planning where to stay or what to do beyond the table, the Lisbon hotels guide, bars guide, wineries guide, and experiences guide cover the rest of the picture.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I order at Downunder by Justin Jennings?

The kitchen's most direct argument for its own existence is in the proteins that Portuguese and broader European restaurants do not offer: crocodile and kangaroo are both listed as signature elements of the menu. If you are coming specifically for the cuisine's identity rather than for a familiar meal in a novel setting, the set menus provide a structured way in , they are designed to show the range of Australian contemporary cooking rather than leave you to move through the à la carte cold. The chef at the counter is Fabio Abbattista, and the cooking holds a Michelin Plate for 2024 and 2025, which gives some indication of the kitchen's quality level relative to its price point.

Do I need a reservation for Downunder by Justin Jennings?

At a €€ restaurant in Santos with a Google score of 4.7 from 835 reviews, demand is consistent enough that booking ahead is advisable, particularly for weekend evenings or if you are visiting as a group. Lisbon's dining scene has become significantly busier with international visitors over the past several years, and mid-market rooms with Michelin recognition tend to fill earlier than their price point might suggest. Unlike the city's starred rooms , where CURA or Belcanto at €€€€ often require weeks of advance planning , Downunder is likely more accessible on shorter notice on quieter midweek evenings, but confirming directly remains the safest approach.