The Lisbon dining scene has become much more diverse in recent years. The Bairro Alto is still one of the best areas for eating out, and is dense with restaurants of all kinds, especially small traditional dives. But as Lisbon moves to embrace the river again, restaurants have been popping up along the old dock areas: Doca de Alcântara, Doca do Poço do Bispo and Doca Jardim do Tabaco – and along the riverfront near the Parque das Nações. Another popular eating area is the rejuvenated Mercado da Ribeira (for more information, click here).
A dish of carne de porco à Alentejana
Lydia Evans/Apa Publications
Seafood is perhaps the best thing to try, as there is a surfeit of fresh fish and shellfish. Not that restaurants skimp on meat: you can find delicious pork or lamb dishes and steak. More adventurous palates can try cuisines imported from Portugal’s former African and Asian colonies.
Portions in Portuguese restaurants tend to be generous. You can ask for a half portion (which is usually charged at approximately two-thirds the full price).
Even the top restaurants in Lisbon are fairly affordable by the standards of European capitals. The ‘tourist menu’ (ementa turística) in many restaurants, particularly at lunchtime, can be an excellent value at 10–15 euros. It is an economically priced set meal – typically bread, butter, soup, main course and dessert, with wine, beer, mineral water or a soft drink included.
Restaurants and Menus
Government inspectors rate all Portuguese restaurants in four categories or classes. In descending order the classes are: luxo (luxury), primeira (first), segunda (second) and terceira (third). The scale is also an indicator of how costly a meal is likely to be. A rating sign is often displayed outside restaurants, while menus shown in the window or beside the door let you know what to expect in variety and price. Prices normally include taxes and a service charge, but you are expected to leave an extra five to 10 percent tip for good service.
Free appetisers?
Most restaurants serve a couvert – unrequested appetisers such as cheese, ham and meat and fish pastes that appear to be free. They are not. You will be charged a few euros for these, but some, such as shellfish, can be much more expensive. If you do not touch them, you should not be charged for them. You may have to point this out; few people opt to abstain.
Whether you indulge in one of Lisbon’s chic riverfront restaurants or absorb some local colour in a simple backstreet family-run place, you are likely to come across a variety of dishes and preparations entirely new to you.
The prices displayed outside some of Lisbon’s cafés may apply only if you stand at the bar. In Portugal, as in some other European countries, if you sit down at a table, you will have to pay the higher prices quoted on the regular menu. Also, in restaurants where seafood portions are charged by weight, waiters may bring out repeated portions without your specifically ordering more. If you don’t refuse them early on, the bill might be quite a shock.
Mealtimes
Breakfast (pequeno almoço) is usually eaten any time until about 10am. Lunch (almoço) is served from shortly after noon until 3pm, and dinner (jantar) runs from 7.30 to 9.30pm (or later in a casa de fado). Snacks between meals are usually taken at a pastelaria (pastry and cake shop), salão de chá (tea shop), or what the Portuguese call, in English, a snack bar – an over-the-counter bar, selling sandwiches, savoury pastries and sweets.
Salt and pepper
Salt and pepper are seldom put on the table. However, you will be given them if you ask: Sal e pimenta, faz favor.
Because lunch and dinner tend to be major events, you may prefer the kind of light breakfast the Portuguese eat: coffee, toast or rolls, butter and jam. Larger hotels usually provide all the extras – such as juice, cereal, eggs and bacon.
Soups and Seafood
Soups. Lunch and dinner often get off to a solid start, and soups are hale-and-hearty typical Portuguese fare. Caldo verde (green soup) is a thick broth of potato purée with finely shredded cabbage or kale. Sometimes sausage is added. Sopa à Portuguesa is similar to caldo verde, but with added broccoli, turnips, beans, carrots and anything else the cook happens to have to hand. Sopa de cozido is a rich meat broth with cabbage and perhaps macaroni added. (This course is often followed by cozido, a huge serving of all the things that were boiled to create the broth, including beef, chicken, pork, sausages, potatoes, cabbage and carrots.) Canja de galinha is simple chicken-and-rice soup.
Seafood is in abundance
Lydia Evans/Apa Publications
Seafood. The best advertisement for seafood is usually the window of a restaurant: a generous refrigerated display case with crabs and prawns, oysters and mussels, sea bass and sole. Seafood restaurants generally sell shellfish by the weight, giving the price in euros per kilo. The Portuguese are very fond of boiled and grilled fish dishes, usually served with generous portions of cabbage and boiled potatoes and doused with a little oil and vinegar.
A number of seafood dishes are true local specialities. Caldeirada is a rich seafood stew. Amêijoas na cataplana is an invention from the Algarve, of steamed clams (or mussels) with sausages, tomato, white wine, ham, onion and herbs. Açorda de marisco is a spicy, garlic-scented thick bread soup full of seafood bits; raw eggs are later added to the mixture. Lulas recheadas are squid stuffed with rice, olives, tomato, onion and herbs, though large squid (chocos) are often simply grilled. Lampreia à Minho is lamprey, not always highly regarded, but quite a delicacy in Portugal, served with a bed of rice and red wine sauce (best from January to March).
Sardinhas (sardines) are excellent in Lisbon and are often served charcoal-grilled (sardinhas assadas).
Bacalhau (cod) is the national dish of Portugal, even though it can be expensive nowadays, and comes dried and salted, and from distant seas. The Portuguese say that cod is served in 100, 365 or 1,000 different ways, depending on the teller’s taste for hyperbole. One of the best ways to try it is in Bacalhau à Gomes de Sá, in which flaky chunks are baked with parsley, potatoes, onion and olives and garnished with crumbled hard-boiled egg. Fresh fish, whole or filleted, is usually served grilled, as are atum (tuna) and espadarte (swordfish steaks). For those who know some Spanish or Portuguese, peixe espada might sound like swordfish but is actually scabbard fish, a long, thin fish that comes from the area south of Lisbon.
Meat and Game
Bife na frigideira is not what you might think. Frigideira means frying pan, and this dish is beefsteak cooked in a wine sauce. Cabrito assado is baked kid served with rice and potato, heavy going but delicious. Carne de porco à Alentejana is an inspired dish of clams and pork cooked with paprika and garlic. Espetada mista means Portuguese shish kebab: chunks of beef, lamb and pork on a spit. Feijoada is the national dish of Brazil, the former Portuguese colony. In Portugal, it’s not nearly as elaborate or ritualised, but it’s still a hearty and tasty stew of pigs’ feet and sausage, white beans and cabbage.
Market price
If you see ‘preço V’ (or simply ‘PV’) beside the seafood or shellfish on a menu, it means that the price is variable depending on the day’s market price. Ask the price before ordering.
Frango (chicken) is popular and prepared many ways: stewed in wine sauce, fried, roasted and barbecued to a tasty crisp. Some restaurants specialise in game – codorniz (quail), perdiz (partridge), lebre (hare) and even javali (wild boar).
Custard tarts from Belém
Lydia Evans/Apa Publications
Dessert and Cheese
The Portuguese have a sweet tooth. Portuguese cakes, custards and pastries made with egg yolks and sugar are delicious, especially the pastéis de nata (custard tarts). Pudim flan is the Portuguese version of crème caramel; it has many variations, including Pudim de Marfim. Arroz doce is rice pudding with a dash of cinnamon. Maçã assada is a tasty sugary baked apple. Pudim Molotov sounds like a bomb, and indeed it’s so rich that it’s sure to explode any strict diet – the fluffy egg-white mousse is immersed in a sticky caramel sauce.
And then there’s cheese. The richest and most expensive in Portugal is Serra da Estrela, a delicious cured ewe’s-milk cheese that originates high up in the mountains. Also on many menus is Flamengo, a mild cheese very similar to Edam. Some restaurants serve queijo fresco as an appetiser. This is a small, white, soft mini-cheese made of ewe’s and goat’s milk, but it’s fairly bland, so you may want to season it with pepper and salt.
International and Exotic Cuisine
Portugal’s cuisine is infused with tastes from other cultures, an advantage of its colonial baggage, which means that you can experiment with different cuisines while you’re in Lisbon. The former colony of Goa accounts for the local popularity of caril (curry) and other Indian-style dishes. A typical Goan delicacy, a lot less pungent than Indian food, is xacuti (pronounced and sometimes spelled chacuti). The dish is simply chunks of fried chicken in a sauce of pepper, coriander, saffron, cinnamon, cumin, anise, cloves and coconut milk served with steamed rice. Piri-piri is a hot-pepper condiment and preparation from Angola that will set most mouths ablaze. Order a piri-piri dish with extreme caution.
Four centuries of ties with the territory of Macau assures all lovers of Chinese food a night out with dishes such as gambas doces (sweet-and-sour prawns).
Vintage port
A bottle of vintage port should be consumed within 48 hours of opening. At home or in Portugal, don’t pay a high price for a glass of a rare vintage port unless the bartender or waiter opens the bottle in front of you. For most establishments, that’s too expensive a proposition.
Table Wines
Portuguese wines are generally good, and several regions produce truly excellent wines. Ask the waiter for tinto (red) or branco (white). Vinho verde (green wine), produced in the northwest, is like a young white wine, but fizzy, light and delightful. A lesser-known type is a red wine from the same region, bearing the seemingly oxymoronic name vinho verde tinto (red green wine). Both of these wines should be served chilled, as should Portuguese rosé, which is also slightly bubbly, and may be either sweet or very dry. Vinhos maduros are mature, or aged, wines.
Vinho espumante is Portuguese sparkling wine, packaged in a Champagne-shaped bottle. Most are sweet, but you can also find some quite dry versions.
Barrels at a winery
Lydia Evans/Apa Publications
All of the best wine-producing regions have names whose use is controlled by law (região demarcada). You may come across these classifications: Bucelas, a light and fresh white wine; Colares, a traditional red wine; and Setúbal, a mellow, sweet white, sometimes served as an aperitif. Dão and Douro in the north produce vigorous reds and flavourful whites. Wines from the Alentejo region are also highly regarded.
Thanks to the unique growing conditions of the Douro Valley in the north of Portugal, fortified port wine has tantalised palates around the world since the British began exporting it in the 17th century. It differs from other wines due to the microclimate and soil of the region, and to the fact that the fermentation process is stopped with brandy. Around 10 percent of the grapes picked each year are still crushed in treading rooms by barefoot men. After two or three days’ fermentation the brandy is added. The following spring, the fortified wine is sent to mature at the lodges on the banks of the River Douro at Vila Nova de Gaia (opposite Porto), from where it is shipped.
First produced on the island of Madeira in the 15th century, Madeira wine became an important export trade due to a combination of its notable quality and Madeira’s position on the shipping lanes to the Indies. With the rise of the British colonies in North America and the West Indies, it fast became a favourite on both sides of the Atlantic. Madeira wine only became a fortified wine when, like port, it was decided to add grape brandy to stabilise it on long sea voyages.
The two most celebrated Portuguese wines, port and Madeira, are mostly known as dessert wines, but may also be sipped as aperitifs. The before-dinner varieties are dry or extra-dry white port and the dry Madeiras, Sercial and Verdelho. These should be served slightly chilled. After dinner, sip one of the famous tawny ports (the aged varieties are especially good), or a Madeira dessert wine, Boal or Malvasia (malmsey).
Other Drinks
Portuguese beers are good and refreshing. Light or dark, they are served chilled, bottled or from the tap. One of the best and most common brands is Sagres. Aguardente (literally ‘fire water’) is the local brandy. Aguardente velha (old) is a fine digestif.
Coffee is the main choice of beverage during the day and at the end of lunch or dinner. Most people order a bica, a small cup of black espresso coffee – also called simply um café or um café espresso.
Tea (chá, pronounced ‘shah’), by the bag, is also drunk – after all, it was the Portuguese explorers who first introduced it to the rest of the Western world. Although the concept of afternoon tea is generally regarded as British, its origins are in fact Portuguese, dating from 1662, when Catherine of Bragança, sister of Dom Afonso VI, married the English King Charles II. Her fashionable court popularised tea drinking.