Summary: Food is fresh, healthy, and plentiful in Portugal
Note: This will be one of several posts on food and beverages in Portugal. This one will focus on just food.
It is easy to eat well in Portugal — and we certainly did!
We found most dishes prepared with fresh, local, and seasonal produce.
Portugal consumes less Ultra-Processed Food (UPFs) than most countries, even among its European neighbors (guess which country routinely is on the top of the list for average daily calories from UPFs?).
Fresh Produce
The fresh fruits and vegetables we saw in markets were gorgeous! Here’s one vendor selling only mushrooms:
The fruit stands in Madeira were especially impressive (all the fruit you see in this picture was grown on the island of Madeira):
Seafood
The Portuguese also consume a lot of seafood, and we ate some seafood almost every day, which included some items we’d never seen before. Here are just a few dishes we were served and readily consumed:
Cheese
We ate beautiful cheese every day in Portugal. Cheese is made on the mainland and on the Azores, but not on Madeira. Cow’s, goat’s, and sheep’s milk cheeses were served nearly every breakfast. Every dinner started with a couvert, typically a basket of bread and butter, sometimes including olives, olive oil, and/or cheese. Cheese was also offered as dessert after several dinners.
Pastel de nata
Of the many desserts we had, we of course ate many Pastéis de nata (plural form of Pastel de nata). These miniature egg custard tarts are best dusted with cinnamon and maybe a little sugar. There are friendly debates over who makes the best Pastéis de nata. We ate many and even hand carried a dozen home with us. Sadly, I just consumed the last of them last night.
The good news is that my wife purchased a stack of Pastéis de nata tins, and a pastry cookbook, so with luck, I may get to enjoy good Portuguese egg tarts without having to wait until I’m back in Portugal.
Meat
The meat we had was delicious and well-prepared.
One special dish we enjoyed a couple times was espetada, which is meat cooked on skewers. On Madeira, it is common to use bay laurel branches instead of metal for the skewers. The laurel branch imparts flavor into the meat.
Each table was equipped with tall bars with hangers on which each skewer could be secured. One must use a knife and fork to slide the meat vertically off the hanging skewer.
One thing I noticed, when ordering meat dishes, we rarely were asked how we wanted the meat prepared. In those cases, it was usually served medium-rare (which happens to be our preference).
At restaurants that catered to tourists, we were asked. Their assumption was we would want it medium or medium-well and they were a bit surprised when we asked for “medium-rare.” I don’t know, but do our British compatriots prefer their meat cooked a bit longer?
The francesinha (pronounced approximately “fra-nsi-sinh-uh“) is a special sandwich originally from Porto. A stack of many different kinds of hot meats is sandwiched between toasted bread, topped with slices of cheese. Hot tomato and beer sauce is poured over the tower, melting the cheese.
A square about a block from our hotel in Porto had at least 4 restaurants all advertising Francesinhas. Our first one was so big we had to split it in half to share between the two of us.
Tip #1: Ask for restaurant recommendations
We received suggestions for restaurants from our drivers, tour guides, and shop keepers, and they were all excellent! People are happy to give you suggestions and you are well advised to heed them.
Be sure to have them write down the names for you. Unless you familiar with Portuguese, hearing the name doesn’t mean you will come anywhere close to spelling the name correctly on your own.
Tip #2: Ask your server for suggestions
Consistently, whenever we asked our server for a recommendation, they offered it without hesitation, and they never steered us wrong.
At one restaurant, Annie asked whether she should get the roasted chicken or the BBQ chicken. The answer was immediate: “roasted chicken,” without explanation or elaboration.
At another restaurant I couldn’t decide between any of the meat entrées. The server indicated that “Granny’s Roasted Veal” (slow roasted and sweetened with wild chestnuts) was the chef’s actual grandmother’s recipe. It was excellent!
We were advised on more that one occasion when they thought we were ordering too much food.
Tip #3: Let your server choose your wine
Having little hope of becoming sufficiently knowledgeable to select a Portuguese wine from a wine list, we simply asked our servers to choose our wines for us. We were always offered a taste, and our servers consistently made satisfactory selections for us.
I photographed the labels of many wines I tasted and enjoyed. But given how little Portuguese wine we see in stores at home, I doubt I will see them again until I return to Portugal.
In another blog post I will list our favorite restaurants including one in Lisbon so good we had to go back a second time!
Blatant Calm 