John Ulan

The Wine Is Goo, Too Good | And the food is rich. Sabor Divino lives up to its name.

Sabor Divino
10220-103 St., 780-757-1114

Did pretty well in 2009: I made it all the way to Jan. 16 before tumbling off the high horse of staunch declarations to myself that the year ahead would be characterized by more self-control — a hair more composure, if you will, in the face of temptation. It took only the appearance of a smart new restaurant in the heart of downtown to undo me.

I should add that it wasn’t just any restaurant but Sabor Divino — “divine taste” in both Spanish and Portuguese — and the prospect of delicacies from the Iberian peninsula that broke my resolve. Cruising the menu one day, I saw not only a piedra of Portuguese favourites but shades of Spain and Italy as well. A plan was then hatched — if I was going down, I was taking at least three other people with me.

Sabor Divino resides in a welcoming, open space in the Boardwalk Market building, with exposed brick, rich drapery, and discreet ambient touches — a live classical guitarist, for instance — that make it feel like there’s more going on than just the distribution of food. Friday night found it a little underpatronized but somehow lively, with music heartthrob-turned-restaurateur Chris(tian) Mena stepping up to the mic beside the guitarist a couple of times through the night to croon Ellington and Wonder.

Maybe it was the slowish night, but we sure had the undivided attention of our loquacious server, who chided us at one point for filling our glasses without his help. It must have felt like a special occasion because we went through two bottles of vinho tinto over appetizers and entrées — good Portuguese food calls for good Portuguese wine, after all.

And bread. And olives. Both were presented for us to nibble as we awaited the decadent-sounding dishes we’d elected for our meal. First up, the Basque tuna tartar ($18) — three generous scoops of minced sushi-grade tuna mixed with diced peppers, onions, chives, and parsley, a refreshing herbal contrast to the silken raw fish. Alongside that, the marinated octopus and mussels appetizer ($15) tossed with a diced peppers and onions didn’t achieve the same positive consensus, but I especially found the octopus to be attractively seasoned and prepared, substantial but not at all rubbery. The others, they missed out.

More wine, more bread, Mena dropped by to welcome us, our own hilarious chatter gained volume. Then, the hushed awe that arrives with the first entrées — broiled bacalhau ($28) lurking beneath a heap of roasted peppers, onions, whole cloves of garlic, and olives; and baked bacalhau enveloped by white wine-cream sauce streamered with carrots and leeks. Then the vibrant pimento red of the pork and clams ($28), a traditional Portuguese preparation, and my feast of grilled calamari and prawns ($24) arrayed over a mound of rich white-bean purée, encircled in a rill of extra virgin olive oil and a perimeter guard of chouriço rounds. My tastebuds wept with joy.

Here’s where my memory really betrays me, because I felt like I was eating freely off everyone else’s plates and the onslaught of gustatory delights is a bit of a blur. I’ll scrape together what I can for you — the pork tenderloin melted in my mouth as no porco a alentejana ever has and the clams were juicily plum; the salted cod in cream sauce filled me with envy, but the broiled bacalhau had a more full-on cod flavour and, thus, more salt. The opaque bulbs of grilled calamari and enormous prawns, dredged through the garlicky bean purée and chased with spicy sausage slices, pleasured my teeth and tongue so much that I couldn’t have chewed faster if I had wanted to.

Next, the refractory period — an Americano or latte and a jolt of sugar to set my composure back on course after saying the phrase “rubber vagina” a bit too loud, then showering my right-hand co-diner with wine. Our eager server was there in a flash, dabbing the spattered vestments with club soda.

Sabor Divino, in acknowledgment of the fact that you probably just had a surpassingly rich meal, thoughtfully offers their desserts in “Temptation” size ($3) — a chance to sample the sweets without exceeding capacity. I was tempted into a taster of the chocolate-cayenne mousse, while two of my co-diners split the leite crème “Dona Irene” ($7), a sort of Portuguese crème brûlée. The dark mousse so beguiled the palate with chocolate that it took a moment to notice the touch of cayenne pepper tingling the nerve endings. It was delicious, but I’m not sure I could have eaten much more than the portion I got.

A glass of port, farewells amid the mounting bass-spuh of dance music from the nightclub next door, and a stroll through the unseasonably warm night and home. As tumbles off the wagon go, it was pretty painless, and in just the right venue for a healthy bit of self-indulgence to offset the drudgery of restraint.