Restaurants

Eating out in Lisbon

Sixteenth and seventeenth century Lisbon is said to have been a city of "many frenetic peoples" (Fernão Lopes, chief chronicler), where "there were more foreigners than natives" (Damião de Góis, humanist and scholar). It is odd that today, at the threshold of the 21st century, little has changed in this colourful, descriptive way in which these two illustrious forebears described the city of the Tagus.

Many factors influenced the weight of Lisbon's cosmopolitan facet. From the outset, the epic of the Discoveries, which brought merchandise from around the known world and its merchants; then, the end of the colonial era, which brought back to old Europe tens of thousands of africans of every colour; next, the peaceful handing-over of the sovereignty of Macao to the Peoples Republic of China, causing yet another integration of thousands of asian friends; and lastly, accession to the European Union and the single currency, with the consequent rebirth of the economy and of international trade, which caused a phenomenon of immigration and stimulated even more the tourism.

A distinction has always been made in Lisbon - in a truly snobbish manner - between simple "occupiers" of the City who only came to work in Lisbon and those who actually lived in Lisbon, the true "Lisboan", and were born in one of its present 53 parishes.

In the old days this distinction was very important, for it marked the difference between the "roguish, street wise cunning" of those who lived in the city by right of birth and, as a rule, disdained the more humble tasks, and the "peasant's cunning" of those who were obliged to come "to work" and to whom the city owed the execution of the more servile jobs.

The latter, in the last century, included people born in every province of Portugal and Spaniards, too, especially in the restaurant trade, were many children of Galicia worked, all of them fine hotel and restaurant professionals to whom Lisbon and Portugal owe a great deal. Eating out in Lisbon, today, is an adventure of the senses for all these reasons.

Where shall I go? Do I want to eat in an african way? From Angola, from Cape Verde? Do I want to eat just like if I was in Brazil with a Bahia or Northeastern accent? Do I want to try the Portuguese experience in India and set out to discover the illustrious Goan food? Do I want to be tempted by the flavours of the Far East, in its Macaoan declination? Or, finally, do I simply want to try the best of typical Portuguese cooking? It's this trail that we shall follow - that of traditional Portuguese and Lisboan cooking - along this path of recommendation, bearing in mind that many of our visitors, will be, as much or even more than us, experts in the gastronomic alternatives that we mentioned earlier.

To organise the difficult task of the visitor, philatelist and gourmet, we would like to make a few suggestions, by way of advice, based on a single certainty: Portugal was the world's first country to publish stamps with recipes of traditional dishes, and this cannot but bring about (yet) another responsibility towards this philatelic community, now in the chapter of gastronomic counselling.

The first piece of advice that can be given in this respect is a matter of common sense: there is no such thing as "A plump chicken for little money", that is, high quality gastronomic experience at little cost, neither in Lisbon nor - and that I am able to state from my own experience - anywhere else in the world.

One can eat well in Lisbon, if you are careful as to the wine you drink, for between €25 and €35 per person. But for this price, no flights of fancy, no fusion cuisine or experimental cooking of the nouvelle cuisine type as intoned by the great Adriá at his famous El Bulli. Just honest food, honestly prepared, in houses that are usually very busy, especially at lunch time.
In this more popular type of restaurant, where the common office worker or bank clerk eats almost every day, the tricks to spend less, besides the obvious one of picking the right restaurant, are also simple: avoid the "starters" or, at most, ask for a "fresh cheese" to start you off before the main dish; flee from the fishes whose price is shown by the kilo; choose the "one-pot dishes", known in Portugal as "prato do dia" (day special's or sugéstion du chef), which are often "monuments" to traditional Portuguese cooking, such as Cozido à Portuguesa (pot au feu), Feijoadas (dried-bean dishes), Mão de Vaca com Grão (calves trotters and chickpeas). Powerful food, "of substance and respect", good for lunch.
Escolher pratos "de tacho", o chamado "prato do dia" aqui em Portugal (o mesmo do que a "sugéstion du chef") e onde podem encontrar "monumentos" da tradição gastronómica lusa como o Cozido à Portuguesa, as Feijoadas, a Mão de Vaca com Grão, e por aí fora. Comida pujante, "de substância e de respeito", boa para os almoços.
Drink the red or white vinhos verdes (slightly sparkling), the younger the better, preferably that year's or the previous year's vintage, choosing one from the wine list priced between €10 and €15, and bear in mind that a bottle usually suffices for two people.
Refuse spirits and trade a sweet desert for a piece of fruit.

Examples of restaurants of this kind in Lisbon include:

• Adega dos Macacos (Cais do Sodré)
• João do Grão (Rossio)
• Mal Amanhado (R. da Alegria)
• Rosa da Rua (Bairro Alto)
• 1º Maio (Bairro Alto)
• O Miudinho (Carnide)
• Verde Mar (Rua de São José)
• Verde Gaio (Campo de Ourique)
• Varina da Madragoa (Santos-o-Velho)

At the restaurants of the next level, where the price is around €35 to €50 per head, mostly frequented by the upper middle class, by executives and by the liberal professions, you may let your creative imagination a bit more loose in choosing your meal.

Begin with "Starters", little dishes of hors d'oeuvres. These are many and varied, ranging from baked salt cod with chickpeas, roe or peixe de escabeche (small pickled fish), not forgetting pimento salad, octopus salad, fresh or dried cheeses and fine presunto (cured ham), etc, etc, a description of which would take up all the room we have. Don't forget the phenomenal Portuguese shellfish, usually expensive. But it's well worth trying the Clams Bulhão Pato style (with coriander), or the local prawns simply boiled with a scattering of coarse sea salt. Then move on to one of Lisbon's traditional recipes: the excellent fresh fish, boiled or grilled, or even baked in the oven (stone bass, grouper, sole, hake, common seabream and blackspot seabream are the most common), the fish stews Fragateira style (complete dishes made with various kinds of fish), oven-baked duck with rice; steaks Marare or Jensen style (thickish sirloin steaks with the appropriate sauce), roast loin of pork, Carne de Porco à Alentejana (pork and clams, with potatoes), liver and onions Portuguese style, Rojões à Minhota (spicy fried pork), and so on.
Against this background a fine mature white or red wine is appropriate, or an Alvarinho verde, the price of which may be as much as €25 or €30. Just be careful to avoid reds dated 2002, the worst year for wines in almost every Portuguese wine-producing region. There are exceptions, of course, though these are for the specialists... Ask for the reds from the Douro, the Alentejo, the Ribatejo, the Setúbal Peninsula or the Dão, but dated 2003, 2004 or 2005.
And finish up with pineapples from the Azores, quite perfumed, or with an egg-based sweet prepared from the recipes of the convents of olden days, or even a crème-brûlée freshly burnt.

Examples of restaurants of this category, possibly the most abundant in Lisbon:

• Solar dos Presuntos (Rua de São José)
• Adega da Tia Matilde (near Rego)
• Funil (in the Avenidas Novas)
• Polícia (in the Avenidas Novas)
• Horta dos Brunos (near Estefânia)
• Sacramento (near Chiado)
• O Poleiro (Entrecampos)
• O Galito(in Pontinha)
• O António do Barrote (in Pontinha)
• Charcutaria (Rua do Alecrim)
• Espaço Açores (Mercado da Ajuda)
• Isaura (à Praça de Londres)
• Coelho da Rocha (Campo de Ourique)
• Salsa e Coentros (Alvalade)
• Pap'Açorda (Bairro Alto)
• O Ramiro (Martim Moniz)
• Solar dos Nunes (above Largo do Calvário, in Alcântara)
• Beira Mar (Cascais)
• Visconde da Luz (Cascais)
• Toscano (Parede)

Lastly, for the gourmet wishing to invest in the knowledge of the finest Portuguese cuisine, there are addresses of high standing in Lisbon and its suburbs, some of them with very honourable mentions in the best-known Restaurant Guides of the world.
Here, where it is mandatory to book a table in advance, the sky's the limit...

A good advise is to follow the suggestions of the Patron, through the Dégustation menus that can go up to between €70 and €90 per person, then choose a wine from the great vintages available in the wine list, some of them at more than €100 a bottle. But even in restaurants of this kind, if we place ourselves in the hands of the head waiter or of the chef, you can eat and drink very well for about €130 to €150 a head.

Alternatives include:

• Terreiro do Paço (at Praça do Comércio)
• Restaurante do Valle-Flor, Vírgula (Cais do Sodré)
• A Travessa (Convento das Bernardas)
• Aviz (Duque de Palmela ao Marquês)
• Bica do Sapato (Santa Apolónia)
• Pragma (Lisbon Casino - Parque das Nações)
• Gambrinus (Rossio)
• Eleven (Parque Eduardo VII)
• Faz Figura (Santa Apolónia)
• 100 Maneiras (Cascais)
• Porto de Santa Maria (Cascais-Guincho)
• Guincho Fortress Restaurant (Cascais-Guincho)

A final word of advice: be it at lunch or at dinner, don't eat where you can't see what's on the plate, be it the typical restaurants where the fado is sung or elsewhere.
Don't forget an easy rule to calculate the price of a normal meal in Portugal: pick an average-priced bottle of red from the wine list and multiply it by two.
And, lastly, don't leave Lisbon without eating codfish. Dried, cured, salted cod that is cooked here in a thousand and one ways, which you can find in restaurants of any type you may wish to frequent, from the simple "eatery" to the deluxe restaurant, boiled cod, or baked, shredded or in flakes in the "French" style, in cod and potato cakes or in fritters...

Good Appetite in Lisbon!
Raul Moreira