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With pastries named ‘nun’s belly’ and ‘angel’s breast’, 356 recipes for codfish, racing-green soups, searing African spices and porridgy hinterland specialties, eating out is deliciously bewildering. Chi chi Chiado offers Portuguese traditional cuisine at its finest, while the Baixa is pretty straight up – all golden arches, laminated menus and meal deals – with the exception of the seafood strip of Rua de Santos de Antão (also home to the best greasy spit-roasted chicken this side of Louisiana). Doca de Santo Amaro and Parque das Nações feature the bland chain gang eateries churning out overpriced dishes. Doca de Jardim de Tabaco has scooped all the culinary and clubbing kudos right now, while eating in well-to-do Lapa could mean rubbing shoulders with Prince and Catherine De Neuve, although the memory will cost you an arm and a leg. Alfama is prime tour group territory, where spacious restaurants produce mediocre dishes to a soundtrack of diluted fado. Bairro Alto cuts across the gastro divides – hip food, soul food, Portuguese staples and polycultural delicacies, all scattered abundantly through its quirky narrow streets.
Portuguese dining rituals tend to follow the Mediterranean siesta body clock, although unlike in Spain, lunch times tend to be a more conscientious one- to 1½-hour affair, and go easy on the soporific stodge.
Breakfast is sweet and strong. Like all good Lisboetas, head for a fine art nouveau pastelaria, such as Café A Brasileira, or Versailles, and head straight for the balcão (the counter) for a turbo-charged bica (seriously strong expresso) pull out a crisp white servietta and select your cake of choice; the best intiatiation being a pastel de nata.
Dinner is eaten quite late, never before 2100 and more like 2200-2300, especially during the summer. In Bairro Alto, restaurants stay open until around 0200, in the outer districts, 2400-0100. Most restaurants close on either Sunday or Monday.
Delightfully, old world Portugal serves food at old world prices, with the some of the cheapest meals in western Europe. Most main fish and meat dishes in Bairro Alto are on average around E10-12. Generally speaking you should easily be able to eat a decent three-course meal with wine and appetizers for less than E20. If you are on a budget, take the menu del dia (usually three courses for around E10), nibbling on pasteis de bacalhão (cod cakes) and pasteis de nata, between meals.
Vegetarians don’t have an easy time in Lisbon, with Italian being the predictable mainstay and a none-too-fertile crop of buffet-style canteens, where vegetables are treated rather mercilessly and the surroundings are grim.
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Travel Guides | Lisbon | Eating And Drinking Lisbon
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