🇵🇹Portugal: what to eat

The dishes

Francesinha

Porto

Bread layered with steak, ham and fresh sausage, covered in melted cheese and a hot, beer-and-tomato sauce, usually with a fried egg on top and fries on the side. Porto's own, born around the 1950s-60s as a local answer to the croque-monsieur. Every café defends its sauce.

francesinha in Porto · DgOlsen CC BY-SA 4.0

Pastel de nata

Everywhere, Belém above all

Custard in crisp, flaky pastry, blistered dark on top. It came from the monks of the Jerónimos Monastery, and the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém has baked it to the original recipe since 1837, where it is called pastel de Belém. Eat it warm, with cinnamon and icing sugar.

pastéis de nata · Claude Truong-Ngoc CC BY-SA 3.0

Bacalhau à Brás

Lisbon, and every home

Shredded salt cod with matchstick fries, onion and soft-set egg, finished with black olives and parsley. Bacalhau is the national obsession, said to have a recipe for every day of the year, and this is the one most people learn first.

bacalhau à Brás · Avicentegil CC BY-SA 4.0

Caldo verde

The Minho, and everywhere

Potato broth with very finely sliced kale, a thread of olive oil and a slice of chouriço. The soup of the north, of weddings, and of every June festival at midnight.

caldo verde · Pasquale Paolo Cardo CC BY 2.0

Sardinhas assadas

The whole coast, in summer

Sardines grilled over charcoal, eaten on a slice of bread that soaks up the juices, with boiled potatoes and a salad of peppers. They are best from June to September, and June's Santos Populares festivals in Lisbon and Porto smell of them.

grilled sardines in Nazaré · Yusuke Kawasaki CC BY 2.0

Leitão à Bairrada

Mealhada and the Bairrada

Suckling pig rubbed with a peppery garlic paste and roasted whole in a wood oven until the skin shatters. On the old N1 road at Mealhada the restaurants stand one after another. Order it with crisps, orange slices and a bottle of Bairrada sparkling wine.

leitão à Bairrada · Adriao CC BY 3.0

Polvo à lagareiro

Everywhere

Octopus boiled until tender, then roasted with garlic, served with small potatoes punched open (batatas a murro) and drowned in olive oil. The name means "olive-press worker's style", which tells you how much oil to expect.

polvo à lagareiro · Exilexi CC BY 4.0

Cataplana

The Algarve

Both the dish and the hinged copper pan it is cooked in, closed like a clam so everything steams in its own juices: shellfish, fish, sometimes pork and clams together. It arrives at the table shut and is opened in front of you.

cataplana in the Algarve · michael clarke stuff CC BY-SA 2.0

Arroz de marisco

The coast

Seafood rice, but soupy rather than dry: a tomato broth full of crab, prawns and clams, brought to the table in the pot and ladled out. Meant for sharing, and for mopping up with bread.

arroz de marisco in Lisbon · Kritzolina CC BY-SA 4.0

Cozido à portuguesa

Everywhere, in winter

A Sunday feast of boiled meats and enchidos (chouriço, farinheira, morcela) with cabbage, carrots, turnip and potatoes. In the Azores, at Furnas, it is buried in pots in volcanic ground and cooked by the earth's heat for hours.

cozido à portuguesa · Uxbona CC BY-SA 3.0

Bifana

Everywhere, Vendas Novas claims it

Thin pork steak marinated in garlic and white wine, stuffed into a soft roll. Mustard is the only acceptable extra. The Alentejo town of Vendas Novas calls itself its capital; Porto serves it in a spicier sauce.

a bifana on a plate · Alberto González CC BY-SA 3.0

Ovos moles de Aveiro

Aveiro

Sweetened egg yolk in thin wafer shells shaped like shells and fish, a convent sweet from the lagoon town of Aveiro. EU-protected (PGI), and sold in painted wooden barrels as well as boxes.

ovos moles · escolaglobal CC BY 2.0

Also look for

• Frango assado (frango no churrasco). Chicken split open and grilled over charcoal, brushed with piri-piri as it cooks, from a churrasqueira by the kilo. The village of Guia in the Algarve is famous for it; everyone else has a favourite on their street.
• Feijoada à transmontana. The Portuguese bean stew: red beans with pork, chouriço and other enchidos, from Trás-os-Montes. Brazil's black-bean feijoada is its better-known cousin.
• Prego. A steak sandwich with garlic, and the traditional way to end a seafood meal at a cervejaria.
• Alheira de Mirandela. A smoked sausage of poultry and bread, invented, the story goes, by Jews hiding their faith from the Inquisition. PGI-protected. Fried, with an egg and fries.
• Queijo Serra da Estrela. Soft raw sheep's-milk cheese from the mountains, DOP. At its best the top is cut off and the inside eaten with a spoon.
• Carne de porco à alentejana. Pork and clams together, with fried potato cubes and coriander. Land and sea on one plate.
• Açorda alentejana. Bread soup with garlic, coriander, olive oil and a poached egg. Poor food, and wonderful.
• Tripas à moda do Porto. Tripe with white beans. It is why people from Porto are called tripeiros.
• Bolo do caco. Madeira's flat sweet-potato bread, cooked on a stone slab and served warm with garlic butter.

What to drink

• Port. Fortified wine from the Douro valley, aged in the lodges across the river from Porto in Vila Nova de Gaia. Tawny for after dinner, white port and tonic before it.
• Vinho verde. Young, fresh wine from the Minho. Alvarinho from Monção and Melgaço is the serious end of it.
• Douro and Alentejo reds. The Douro's from the same terraces as port, the Alentejo's rounder and sunnier. Both are very good value.
• Madeira. Fortified wine from the island, heated and aged so long it keeps almost forever once opened.
• Ginjinha. Sour cherry liqueur, drunk standing at tiny bars in Lisbon's Rossio, or in a chocolate cup in Óbidos.
• Um fino or uma imperial. A small draught beer. Fino in Porto, imperial in Lisbon, and people will notice which one you say.

A week eating north to south

Porto to the Alentejo by car, one region a day, with where to eat at every stop. Add the Algarve at the end if you have more time.

Where to eat in Portugal

23 places, from a sandwich counter to a clifftop two-star, by region. Stars and Bib Gourmands are from the current Michelin guide; every place was checked on 26 September 2026. Menus and hours change, so check before you go.

€ casual, under about €25€€ a proper meal, €25-60€€€ tasting menu

Every table on one map

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Leaflet | © OpenStreetMap contributors

Markets and food experiences

• Mercado do Bolhão, Porto. Porto's 19th-century market, reopened in 2022 after a long restoration: fish, cured meats, flowers and small places to eat. Closed Sundays and holidays.
• The port lodges of Gaia. Cross the Dom Luís I bridge from Porto and taste in the cellars where port is aged.
• Santos Populares in June. Lisbon's Santo António (12-13 June) and Porto's São João (23-24 June): street grills, sardines on bread and caldo verde until dawn.
• A quinta in the Douro. Stay or eat at a wine estate on the terraces. Harvest runs through September.
• Mealhada at lunch. Drive the N1 through Mealhada and pick a leitão house; they cluster along the road.

Other people worth reading

• All MICHELIN-Starred Restaurants in Portugal 2026guide.michelin.comThe 2026 star list every starred pick here comes from.
• Bib Gourmand in Portugalguide.michelin.comThe value list, updated as the guide changes.
• Gastronomy and winesvisitportugal.comThe national tourist board on regional food and wine routes.

Nobody paid to be on this page and we earn nothing from these links. We pick, we check, and we date it.

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