Jardim do Sardão

Jardim do Sardão was born in 2020 in Charneca, Fazendas de Almeirim, in the heart of the Ribatejo region. It began as a small personal project by Gonçalo Reguinga, driven by curiosity and a desire to discover citrus fruits beyond the ones we usually find.

His connection to the land goes back much further. Gonçalo grew up in a farming family, surrounded by fields, orchards and produce grown by his grandparents. The very plot where the citrus trees grow today was once his grandfather’s plum orchard. That agricultural heritage would later meet his path as a cook.

Trained in cookery in Santarém and Lisbon, Gonçalo began to look at ingredients differently: where they came from, how they smelled, how good they were. The turning point came during an internship at Belcanto, where he first encountered the kaffir lime. “I fell in love with that citrus and couldn’t get it out of my head,” he recalls. Finding it, however, was another matter: “It was almost impossible to find on the market.” He even reached out to producers hoping to visit them, but never heard back. So he found another way: if he couldn’t get to the citrus, the citrus would come to him.

Between 2019 and 2020, he planted his first two or three trees in the garden. Then he added one more, and another. Some were ordered from Italy and France, as many of these varieties were impossible to find in Portugal. “I only knew the kaffir lime. I didn’t know Buddha’s hand, or yuzu, or anything else,” he says. In most cases, he planted trees without knowing what their fruit would be like. It was through growing, observing, harvesting and tasting that he truly began to discover each variety.

Over time, the garden became a place of collection, experimentation and learning. Three years ago the project took a leap forward, and today Jardim do Sardão is home to more than 200 trees and a collection of 20 references dedicated to ancient, rare and little-known citrus, many of them of particular interest to chefs. They include yuzu, sudachi, kaffir lime, Buddha’s hand (also in a variegated form), pink, green and purple finger lime, kumquat, limequat, bergamot, citron, Pursha lime, blood orange, Arcobal orange, Mellerosa lemon, Galego lemon, Pink Variegated lemon and Eremorange. And the collection keeps growing, with new plants under observation.

For Gonçalo, getting to know a citrus fruit is not just about tasting it. It means understanding the plant and everything around it: the soil, the water, the ground cover, biodiversity, pruning, flowering, pests, cold, heat and time. That is why Jardim do Sardão is also a living laboratory. Each tree shows how different varieties adapt to the conditions of the Ribatejo, and each harvest adds to that knowledge.

This spirit of learning extends to the classroom. Gonçalo now teaches at the school in Santarém where he trained, and he is still in the kitchen every day, now passing on his craft to a new generation of cooks.

One of the project’s goals is to make these fruits available to those who seek them, especially cooks who, like Gonçalo, struggle to find them. Citrus from Jardim do Sardão already reaches restaurants such as Yakuza and Vila Joya, as well as shops in Lisbon through specialist distribution.

Jardim do Sardão also ships orders directly across Portugal, with seasonal availability that follows the production of each tree. Even so, the aim has never been large-scale production, but rather quality, discovery and sharing.

Today, Jardim do Sardão’s mission is to preserve and showcase this diversity of citrus, grow fruit of the highest quality and keep learning from every variety, with respect for the land, natural cycles and knowledge built up over time. The project continues to grow with the same idea that started it all: plant, observe, discover and share.