Saveur – July 2019

22 SAVEUR.COM PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALEX GAGNE

“THIS IS NOT ENTRY-LEVEL FISH,” says a smiling Michael
Benevides, standing in what has to be the United States’
largest purpose-built bacalhau chamber. It occupies one
end of Portugalia Marketplace, the emporium Benevides
opened with his father, Fernando, six years ago in Fall
River, Massachusetts. The glass-enclosed, temperature-
controlled monument to sa lt cod is just one corner of the
ambitious family market, but it perfectly represents the
store’s mission to serve the local Portuguese commu-
nity and to celebrate and share the culinary heritage
of Portugal.
Benevides was born in 1977 on São Miguel, the largest
island of the Azores, a chain of Portuguese islands more
than 800 miles from the mainland. But when he immi-
grated to Fall River with his family at age 2, he settled into
an already well-established community. The Portuguese
have had a strong presence in southeastern Massachu-
setts since the 19th century, when many immigrated for
jobs in the booming whaling and textile industries. Both
of his parents worked in Fall River’s textile mills, and his
father started a small import business on the side out of
their garage. After word of the operation spread among
the Portuguese community, he moved into a larger ware-
house space to focus on Portugalia full time.
For its first 25 years, their customer base was almost
entirely Portuguese. But Benevides became convinced
that Portugalia could reach a larger audience. When a for-
mer textile mill came up for sale, Benevides envisioned
something to rival international markets in New York like
Sahadi’s, Zabar’s, or Eataly. But first he had to convince
his father that quadrupling square footage and bringing
a design-conscious shop to a small former mill town was
a sound business decision.
Serendipitously, Benevides’ plans for expansion coin-
cided with a boom in Portuguese tourism from the U.S.,
and, with it, an increase in Portuguese cultural liter-
acy and enthusiasm among non-Portuguese Americans.
These days, Portugalia is humming. There are shelves of
high-quality olive oils, tinned fish, jams, and the coun-
try’s largest selection of Portuguese wine. There are
heaps of locally produced Azorean breads, like massa
sovada (similar to cha lla h) and bolos (f luffy disks similar
to English muffins), alongside piles of smoky chouriço,
linguiça, and morcela (blood sausage).
“I wa nted to create a place,” he says, “ where people wou ld
feel like, ‘Okay, wow, this is a really different representa-
tion of Portugal than we’re used to seeing.’” 

Portugalia

Marketplace

gives Portuguese

specialties the

kind of exposure

more common

to French and

Italian foods.

Conservas, Olives,

and Salt Cod

The country’s best Portuguese market is

in a mill town in Massachusetts?

BY LUKE PYENSON

EAT THE WORLD