Lisbon Restaurant Tips by barryg23

Cafe at the Gulbenkian Museum

There's a lovely cafe in the Gulbenkian museum, with good value food and drink and nice views of the quiet Gulbenkian gardens. This is a great place to go after visiting the museum.

Address: Avenida de Berna

Comparison: about average

Price: less than US$10

Rating: 4

Theme: Local

Baiana: Good value restaurant on Avenida da Liberdade

We stopped by Baiana for a late lunch one day in Lisbon. Everything on the menu was extremely cheap, and there was a good selection of daily specials.

The waiter asked us if we wanted to try a traditional Portugese dish and recommended Bacalhau con Nates, a fish pie made with cream. This was delicious and I'm glad he suggested it as I'd never have tried it otherwise.

Baiana also had a good selection of wines and ports but it was to early in the day to try this. When we walked past the restaurant later in the evening it was closed so a lunchtime or afternoon visit might be the best option. The total cost for two main courses and two drinks was 11 Euro.

Address: Avenida de Liberdade 56-61

Comparison: less expensive than average

Directions: Near Avenida metro

Phone: 213 469 612

Price: less than US$10

Rating: 4

Theme: Local

Sao Cristovao: Cape Verdean Restaurant

To try something different from the usual portugese food, we visited Sao Cristovao, a restaurant in the Alfama specialising in African dishes, especially from Portugal's former colonies such as Mozambique, Angola and Cape Verde.

Sao Cristovao is a very relaxed place. Our order was taken twice and we were there about an hour and a half in all. It’s very much a locals place and at the start we were the only customers other than a few locals who were chatting with the family running the place.

As soon as we arrived we were given a plate of bread and olives and we ordered some house wine which was refreshingly cheap at 3 Euro for a litre.

For main course I tried Galinha Caboverdiana, a chicken dish with coconut milk while Ruth had grilled fish with banana and beans. Unfortunately the chicken was awful though the sauce and vegetables were fine. Ruth's fish looked much nicer and I ended up sharing most of it with her. You get used to the fish being served with the head on after a while.

Later in the evening more customers arrived and a local guy started playing guitar. The electricity kept flicking on and off - all part of the experience! Maybe it was the wine but we were starting to really like the place. The meal was very good value at about 14 Euro for everything, but while the wine and entertainment kept us busy I wasn't too impressed with the food.

Address: Rua de Sao Cristovao 28-30

Comparison: least expensive

Directions: Alfama

Phone: 218 885 578

Price: less than US$10

Rating: 4

Theme: African

Ristorante Locande 1: Good Value Italian Restaurant

If you fancy something different to Portugese food Ristorante Locande 1 is a good value Italian restaurant amongst all the Portugese fish restaurants in the area north of Rossio. This place was full of tourists and wasn't the place we'd usually visit but it had been a very long day of sightseeing and we didn't have the energy to look any further.

The pizzas were excellent as was the house wine though it was little pricey at 9.50 Euro for a bottle. Our waiter was from Germany and spoke no Portugese. Not really a problem for him as most of the customers were English. If you get here early you might get one of the tables on the outdoor terrace, otherwise there is plenty of room inside.

Address: Rua D. Paio Mendes 2-A-10

Comparison: about average

Directions: North of Rossio

Price: US$11-20

Rating: 3

Theme: Italian

Ilha Doce: Parque das Nacoes Restaurant

After visiting the Oceanario we took the cable car to the north of the park and went looking for a place to eat. There is a street near the cable car station full of restaurants. We walked the whole length of the street looking for the places that our ticket gave us a 20% discount. When we couldn't find them we settled on Ilha Doce, a busy place at the northern end of the street.

The food was quite nice. We had garlic bread for starters followed by Porco a la Portugaise for Ruth and Porco al Alentajo for me. These were lovely dishes though I didn't realize mine was served with shellfish which I normally don't like. It wasn't the nicest or the cheapest restaurant we've been to in Lisbon but most of the places in Parque das Nacoes are of a similar standard.

Comparison: least expensive

Directions: Parque das Nacoes

Price: less than US$10

Rating: 3

Theme: Local

Escondidinho das Amoreiras: Lisbon budget restaurant

Returning from the aqueduct we were planning a picnic and a break and a break from wine at lunchtime when we came across this place. Nearly every table was taken and there was not a tourist in sight so I knew it was exactly the place we wanted.

Wine was 3 Euro for a bottle of house red so that put a stop to any thoughts of a break. The food was excellent, and we again had a full lunch of the day - soup, bread, pork for main course, dessert and coffee. Even though there was only one waiter looking after every table in the place, the service was excellent - the type of service you often find in these out of the way restaurants. Definitely recommended, one of the best restaurants we visited on our trip.

Address: Rue P. Sousa da Camara

Comparison: less expensive than average

Directions: Amoreiras

Price: less than US$10

Rating: 4

Theme: Local

Restaurant Tronco: Excellent local restaurant

Rua das Portas de Santo Antao is notorious as the one street in Lisbon where waiters stand outside and try to entice you to eat in their restaurant. The only restaurant in this street where this didn't happen was Tronco, next to our hotel Pensao Portuense, at the northern end of the street.

Refreshingly free of tourists, Tronco is a family run place, very popular with locals and, judging from all the testimonials in different languages in the window, with plenty of travellers alike though whenever we’ve been here the other customers have been exclusively Portugese.

There is an excellent value special set menu where you can get soup, bread, chicken or fish, dessert, coffee and half a bottle of wine for only 9.50 Euros. The a la carte menu is also good value, with a nice selection of meat and fish for between 3 and 6 Euros. The proprietor didn't speak English so it was sometimes pot-luck with our orders but every meal we ate here was excellent.

We liked this place so much we ended up eating here 3 times during our first trip in 2005. When we came back in 2006 it was good to see nothing had changed so we had two more meals here.

Address: Rua das Portas de Santo Antao 147

Comparison: less expensive than average

Directions: Near Rossio

Phone: 213 460 439

Price: less than US$10

Rating: 4

Theme: Local

Star of India: Lisbon Curry

The most amusing ad I saw in Lisbon was for a restaurant which was advertising the fact that it had an chef trained in England! Not surprisingly, it was for an Indian restaurant, of which there are quite a few in Lisbon. On our first day in Lisbon we were handed a flyer for the Star of India so we decided to try it for lunch. They offered a menu of the day with poppadoms, a choice of lamb, chicken or vegetarian curry for main course, and fruit and coffee.

I've had far better curries back in Britain, so while interesting to visit a British style curry house in a different country, it didn't quite match the other restaurants we visited in Lisbon and Portugal. Overall, however, it was quite good value at 5.95 Euro per person.

Address: Rua do Telhal 73-75

Comparison: about average

Directions: Off Avenida da Liberdade

Phone: 213 428 278

Price: less than US$10

Rating: 3

Theme: Indian

Mercado da Ribeira

As if a regular Portugese menu-of-the-day was not filling enough, at the restaurant above the Mercado da Ribeiro you can get the all you can eat buffet version. That's as much bread, cheese, soup, main courses and desserts as you want for only 6.95 Euro. This place seemed very popular with the local people - there was barely a table free when we got there - though the quality was not as high as some of the other restaurants we visited in Lisbon.

Address: Avenida 24 de Julho

Comparison: less expensive than average

Directions: Opposite Cais do Sodre station

Price: less than US$10

Rating: 3

Theme: Local