Restaurants

A beach fling

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PraiadoAbano

First-time visitors to Lisbon are often surprised by its beauty. But, when you live in the capital city, you begin to take this beauty for granted and look around for something new. You don’t have to look far. Drive a few miles down the coast and you’ll find secluded beaches that will tempt your heart.

One of these beaches is Praia do Abano, on the coast of Cascais. Its cliff top offers breathtaking views of the Sintra mountain and the endless sea. Sheltered from the wind, Abano is the perfect place to enjoy a day in the sun.

There is a rustic restaurant on top of the cliff that you won’t find in tourist guides. It serves simple, wonderful food, such as amazing clams with irresistible country bread, delicious rabbit cooked in wine, and flavorful shrimp “açorda.” It is an unforgettable experience to dine there while the sun melts and the moon comes out to gild the sea with silver light.

An afternoon at Abano feels like a vacation. You return to Lisbon relaxed and content and, when you arrive at the capital, you are surprised by its beauty all over again.

The Abano beach is 21 miles from Lisbon. The telephone number of Restaurant Abano is 214870342.

A magical Summer soup

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Composit 3F©

When we sat down for dinner in the beautiful esplanade of the Arraiolos Pousada, we expected good food and attentive service. We got much more than that. We were served a series of delicious dishes that harmonized perfectly with Alentejo wine and made us feel we were at the right place, at the right time.

The dinner started with two soups, a Summer cucumber soup, followed by a tomato soup with quail egg. We then had “migas” (an Alentejo specialty made with bread) with wild asparagus and lamb grilled with rosemary. The grand finale was a sampling of traditional convent desserts updated with great refinement.

We congratulated the chef, Elizabete Velez, who told us that she learned to cook with her mother and grandmother in a small village in Alentejo. She offered to give us the recipe for her delicious Summer cucumber soup because it is very easy to make. Here it is.

Elizabete Velez’s Summer cucumber soup

Get the very best cucumbers you can find. Peel them (this step is key because the peel is very bitter) and remove their seeds. Dice the cucumbers, season them carefully with salt, pepper, and great olive oil. Puree the mixture in a blender. Pour into small bowls, placing one or two ice cubes in each bowl. Garnish with toasted slivered almonds, small strips of cucumber peel, and Portuguese sausage (preferably from Alentejo!).

Imagine eating this soup in a warm Summer evening, as the sun sets over a grove of olive trees and the stars wait their turn to shine on the Arraiolos castle. It’s magical!

Click here for the Pousadas’ website and here for more photos of the Arraiolos Pousada.

Our favorite restaurant in Évora

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BotequimdaMouraria-Edit©

Our favorite restaurant in Évora, Botequim da Mouraria, seats only eight people and takes no reservations. There are no tables, everybody eats at the counter. Domingos Canelas, the restaurant’s owner, recites the menu, an endless list of delicacies that includes wild asparagus, eggs laid by blissful chicken, incredible prosciutto from Alentejo, luscious figs, briny clams, succulent fish and meat. In the kitchen, his wife Florbela cooks these ingredients with great skill and refinement. When Domingos brings the food he smiles, anticipating our enjoyment.

We asked him to select a wine from the restaurant’s amazing list. Instead of choosing an expensive bottle, he decided to impress us with a perfectly chilled white wine from Herdade Grande. “In Portugal,” he said, “you don’t need to spend much money to drink great wine.” And we agreed, marveling at the perfect harmony between the wine and the food.

During our leisurely lunch, many customers came to the door and left because there were no seats available. And yet, Domingos didn’t  try to rush us. “You need time to enjoy the food of Alentejo,” he said.

We asked whether he planed to expand the size of the restaurant. He answered without hesitation: “I can only maintain this quality if I stay small.” At Botequim da Mouraria small is wonderful.

Botequim da Mouraria is at Rua da Mouraria, 16-A in Evora, tel. 266-746-775, email: botequim.mouraria@sapo.pt.

The best of both worlds

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Azeitonas Bel Canto-F

Portugal is a country with century-old traditions. But it is also a place where a new generation is creating the future.

Consider the fruits of the Olea europaea, commonly know as olives. If you visit a Portuguese farmers market, you’ll find delicious olives cured in traditional ways. But if you dine at Belcanto, José Avillez’s wonderful restaurant in Lisbon, you’ll be served three invented olives. The first, a spherical olive that explodes in the mouth, is an homage to Avillez’s apprenticeship at elBulli. The second is a delicious black olive in a light crunchy tempura. The third is an inverted dry martini: the liquid is olive juice and the “olive” is a sphere of gin.

Which do you prefer, tradition or modernity? In Portugal you don’t have to choose.

Belcanto is located at Largo do São Carlos in Lisbon, tel. 21-342-0607.

A memorable sandwich

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Sandes de leitão- ©mariarebelophotography.com

The Earl of Sandwich is credited with the idea of placing food inside two slices of bread. But it was Portuguese peasants who turned this aristocratic whim into something sublime.

In ancient times, peasants in Mealhada, a town in the Bairrada region, used to offer their largest pigs to the nobles who owned the land. The peasants were left with small pigs called “leitão” (“laytaoum”).  They roasted them in wood ovens, seasoned with garlic, bay leaves, olive oil, and plenty of white pepper. The meat, cut into slices and served inside country bread, produced amazing sandwiches.

One of our favorite side trips from Lisbon is to drive the 90 km to Mealhada to enjoy a freshly-made “leitão” sandwich, accompanied with local sparkling wine. On the way there, we visit the beautiful Batalha monastery. On the return, we stop by the enchanting Bussaco Palace for coffee and pastry. The delicious food and beautiful scenery always make for memorable trips.

There are many good restaurants in Mealhada serving “leitão à moda da Bairrada” (leitão Bairrada style). Two of our favorites are Meta dos Leitões (IC2, Estrada Nacional 1, Sernadelo, Mealhada, tel. 231 209 540, email: casadesarmento@gmail.com) and Pedro dos Leitões (Rua Alvaro Pedro no 1 Sernadelo, Mealhada, tel. 231 209 950).

Taberna da Rua das Flores

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Taberna da rua das flores

The name of this restaurant on Rua das Flores (flower street) combines the Portuguese word for tavern with the title of a famous novel: Tragedy on Rua das Flores, by the great 19th-century writer Eça de Queiroz.

The Taberna serves traditional home cooking. If you’re adventurous, try the excellent “iscas” (marinated liver).  Otherwise, you’ll find many other great choices, such as carrot and coriander soup, pork with sweet potato and zucchini, duck rice, and codfish with chickpeas. The quirky antique furniture helps create an unpretentious atmosphere. Prices are modest, so every meal has an happy ending.

Eça de Queiroz complained, through the words of one of his characters, that Lisbon lacked a fun place to eat supper after the Opera. One century later, this place exists. It is called Taberna da Rua das Flores.

The Taberna is located on Rua das Flores 103, tel. 351 21 347 9418, email: tabernadasflores@gmail.com. 

Smart dining

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Raposo

Do you want to know a secret?  Do you promise not to tell? Raposo, a neighborhood restaurant in Lisbon, serves wonderful food for a modest price. They use the freshest ingredients prepared with no shortcuts and offer a wine list that perfectly complements the flavors of Portuguese cuisine. You can dine on delicious prosciutto, fragrant clams, cuttlefish with ink, fish rice with monk fish liver, and many other delicacies.

Raposo means fox, an animal with a reputation for being smart. A female fox is the hero of the popular book “The Romance of the Fox,” written by author Aquilino Ribeiro in 1924 as a Christmas gift for his son. It chronicles the adventures of a fox who always ends up feeling happy with her choices. And that’s very much how we feel dining at Raposo.

Raposo is on Rua Passos Manuel, 60, Lisbon, tel. 21-353-1059. It closes on Sundays.

Belcanto’s philosophy

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Belcanto2

Georg Friedrich Hegel described the evolution of human ideas as involving a thesis, followed by an antithesis, and then by a synthesis that reconciles the two. Believe it or not, these concepts are useful to explain the cuisine of Belcanto, a fantastic Lisbon restaurant owned by chef José Avillez.

The modernist cuisine of restaurants like elBulli is the antithesis of traditional Portuguese cooking. Avillez combines the two in a delicious synthesis that is both familiar and surprising. He serves olives bursting with flavor, golden eggs, seafood immersed in the smell of the sea, manta rays transformed into Pollock paintings.

The Michelin inspectors were so impressed with Avillez’s culinary dialectic that they awarded Belcanto a star. We suspect Hegel would agree.

Belcanto is located at Largo do São Carlos in Lisbon, tel. 21-342-0607.

A fisherman’s place

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Tasca do Joel-F

Fishermen have a hard life. They go out in the dark, defying the waves to cast their nets on a uncertain sea. On good nights, their boats return full of fish, pursued by seagulls looking for a free meal.

In Peniche, fishermen used to celebrate a good catch in a shack where they cooked fish and vegetables in a makeshift oven. Their food was better than anything served in a royal banquet because it was prepared with the freshest, greatest ingredients that nature has to offer. So, every meal turned into a celebration.

Over time, this shack was renovated and converted into a restaurant called Tasca do Joel. Gourmets flock to its out-of-the-way location, knowing that they’ll find something special: great ingredients that shine through simple, traditional preparations paired with the best Portuguese wines. And the same feeling of celebration that once gathered Peniche fishermen around a rustic oven.

Tasca do Joel is located on Rua do Lapadusso, 73, Peniche. Tel. 262 782 945. Email: tascadojoel@gmail.com. Click here for their web site.

Pizzaria Lisboa

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Pizzaria LisboaChef José Avillez can do it all. At Belcanto he showcases avant-garde cuisine that is deliciously original. At Cantinho do Avillez he serves inventive bistro food. Now he opened a pizzeria!

At Pizzaria Lisboa Avillez uses the Italian pizza as a canvas to showcase ingredients and inspiration that are Portuguese. The restaurant feels as if it’s always been there, serving as meeting point for groups of friends.

The service is great. We asked for a pizza degustacion, a sequence of different pizzas cut into slices. Our server replied: what a great idea, of course we’ll do it! And so we tried pizza Chiado, Figueira, 28, Comércio, and Caravela.

Not once did we wish we were in Naples or Rome. Instead, we went out into the warm night feeling lucky to be in Lisbon.

Pizzaria Lisboa is located at Rua dos Duques de Bragança, 5H, tel. 21-155-4945. Reservations are a must. Click here for their web site.