Hidden Gem Restaurants in Lisbon
Tom finds restaurants by walking. Not wandering aimlessly, but walking with intent, away from the main squares, away from the laminated menus with photographs, away from anywhere a tour group could reasonably park a bus. He has been going to Lisbon for years and the city has changed considerably in that time, but the restaurants worth eating in still tend to be the ones that have not updated their signage since 1987 and do not have a presence on any booking platform.
Lisbon is one of the great eating cities of Europe and it does not get enough credit for it. The food is honest and direct. Grilled fish, slow-cooked meat, good bread that arrives without being asked for, wine that costs almost nothing and is almost always drinkable. The Portuguese approach to a meal is that it should be generous and unfussy and that you should leave feeling looked after rather than impressed. Tom finds this philosophy very agreeable.
Where to look
Mouraria is the neighbourhood Tom goes to first. It is the oldest part of the city, genuinely lived-in, and the restaurants there are mostly feeding the people who live in the area rather than visitors passing through. The food reflects that. Portions are large, prices are low, and the menus lean heavily on whatever is good that week rather than a fixed list of tourist-friendly options.
Intendente has changed in recent years but still has places worth finding. The square itself is lively in the evenings and the streets around it have a mix of old tascas and newer places that have opened without abandoning what makes Lisbon food good. Tom has had some of his best meals in Intendente by walking in somewhere that had no English menu and pointing at what the table next to him was eating.
Prazeres, out near the cemetery in the west of the city, is almost entirely off the tourist circuit and has several excellent places that have been there for decades. It takes about twenty minutes on the 28 tram from Alfama and most visitors do not make the journey. Their loss.
What to order
Bacalhau, salt cod, appears on almost every menu in dozens of preparations and the Portuguese claim there are 365 ways to cook it. Bacalhau com natas, baked with cream and potato, is rich and filling and the version Tom has eaten at a small place in Mouraria is the best thing he has eaten in the city.
Caldo verde, the simple kale and potato soup with a slice of chourico, is one of those dishes that is so good it is hard to understand why it is not eaten everywhere. Order it when you see it. The grilled sardines in summer, when they are in season, are worth planning a trip around.
The practical things
Go at lunch. The Portuguese lunch is the main meal of the day in most traditional restaurants and the prato do dia, the dish of the day, is usually the best value on the menu. Two courses with wine for ten or twelve euros is still entirely normal in the places Tom is talking about.
Book nothing. The places worth eating in either do not take reservations or are small enough that turning up and waiting five minutes is sufficient. The best meal Tom has had in the city this year was somewhere he walked past three times before deciding to try it.
The Best in Travels,
Your Friend Fushia