Let's Take a Trip to Lisbon
& host some tables in an unforgettable location with some incredible women.
There are moments when building a company that make you stop and think, Oh shit, I’m really doing this. I was already excited when Locke approached me to host an Official Table at their new property in Lisbon, but the moment it actually hit me? It was at the airport, about to grab a coffee at Joe & The Juice, when I realized I’d be using my company credit card. I know… a weird moment for a revelation. But after years of traveling for corporate jobs, swiping a company card always felt like a tiny girl math win - courtesy of someone else. Except this time, it wasn’t. It was me. My company. My responsibility to keep the cash flow moving, to pay my team, launch new features, and still have enough money at the end of the day to create a towering cabbage art installation.
Real-life adult moment aside, stepping off the plane in Lisbon, I was ready for 36-ish hours of soaking in the city and gathering women at the breathtaking new Santa Joana restaurant inside Locke Lisbon.
Before we dive into the table….a few Lisbon’s must’s from this quick trip.
Coffee Before Walking the City – Dram’tico - for a quick espresso hit before Lisbon’s endless hills.
Lunch – Comoba - filling and healthy pit stop.
Pre-Dinner Wine – Magnolia Bistror & Winebar
Cocktails (Pre or post-dinner) – Bar Joana – the bar has a full indoor terrace overlooking the restaurant where you feel the vibrance of the restaurant and at the same time get the intimacy of your group.
Dinner
Skizzo – The latest restaurant from Da Noi. Warm, inviting, open kitchen, and the servers wore jean jackets, which I loved. Above all, order the lobster.
Santa Joana – A restaurant that’s part of the Locke Lisbon, where every detail, down to the leather coasters are thought through. The food is quick literally **chef’s kiss** and everyone working there greats you with a smile.
Stay – Locke Lisbon – For someone like me, who likes having a kitchen, space to work, and a sense of home while traveling, this is a no-brainer. It’s in a great part of the city and offers restaurants, Cafe’s and a pool for it’s guests.
Now, let me paint the picture of the stunning location we had the dinner.
You walk through a grand, historic space with soaring four+ meter high ceilings, painted in intricate blue tiles, and through a heavy wooden door with intricate metal details that feels like it should take two hands to open. Enter - Santa Joana at the Locke Lisbon. Inside, the space is warm, with natural textures, earthy tones, and soft lighting. It’s the kind of place that feels intimate, no matter how filled the room gets.
We started the evening on the second-floor bar, where the early guests mingled over cocktails, absorbing the quiet elegance of the space & the details down to the leather coasters making it feel effortlessly refined.
At around 8 PM, we moved to our table of 6 nestled into the corner, where three thoughtful Portuguese courses were about to be served, each dish telling a part of Chef Nuno’s story.
Throughout the evening we discussed the theme - Your Life’s Crossroads—the moments, decisions, and unexpected turns that shape who we are today.
For me, that crossroads moment was interviewing 17 times for a job at a top agency in Amsterdam, only to get rejected. But instead of letting my path be decided for me, I figured out my own visa, moved to Amsterdam as a Sole proprietor (basically a freelancer), and landed a gig with that exact agency where they had to pay me in 5 months what I would have made with them for a full year.
Around the table, women shared their own pivotal moments. Most were career leaps & city changes which changed the landscape of their day-to day life. We asked each other what our current-day crossroads were & what struck me most was the way women who were currently at a crossroads could so easily reflect confidence onto the person sitting next to them but not always themselves.
A woman struggling to raise her freelance rates suddenly had the perfect advice for another on how to cold reach out for her perfect project. It was a reminder that, often, we already know the answers, but sometimes, we need to hear them from someone else & for them to remind us that it’s not all that scary. One piece of advice another one of the women gave was that “If you always think it’s a no, a yes will always come as a pleasant surprise. So why not put yourself out there.”
At one point, someone asked me, "How did you get & the Table to the ‘success’ level of where it is now?" I laughed because while, yes, we’ve built a strong foundation with 4-5 revenue streams now taking serious shape, what people don’t see is all the times I’ve tried and failed (& continue to fail) before landing on what works.
You quite literally just have to keep throwing pasta at the wall until something sticks. That’s not just business—that’s life. I stopped counting all the women I speak to who tell me their plans, ideas, their almost - but are too scared to start. Not making a decision is still making a decision. Choose to try.
We ended the night with all of our spoons in a matcha sponge cake that took me by surprise, paired with orange cream ice cream drizzled with olive oil. We had a few final laughs, realized it was 11:15 pm on a Wednesday so called it a night where I was able to take 10 steps and crash in my room.
Lisbon, as a city, is creative, effortlessly cool, and completely its own. It’s somewhere I want to keep growing & the Table - both for the Official Tables and something even bigger…Collective Tables are coming.
Think of it as the best parts of an Official Table—intimate groups of 4-6 women, a meaningful theme, delicious food—but set in a stunning restaurant, with 30+ other women experiencing the same conversation at their own tables. You get the best of both worlds: deep connection in intimate groups of women around the same stage of life as you yet you’re surrounded by tables of women as a collective.
Lisbon, we’re just getting started and what a kickoff it was at Locke.
Much more to come. Until the next table.
xx
Love that you are posting on Substack now, and love the story behind this! xo