Offbeat Eats

Our last dinner in Lisbon was at a place scoped out by my sister-in-law: A Conzinha Sr. Lisboa. Located a block east of Avenida da Liberdade, A Conzinha Sr. Lisboa (The name means, approximately, “The Kitchen of Mr Lisbon”, the nickname of the executive chef), this was a great choice for a final meal in Portugal, since the menu focuses entirely on traditional Portuguese recipes made with modern, local ingredients.

After a morning of checking out churches and panoramic views (and an aborted attempt at Castelo São Jorge due to unusually heavy crowds), we decided it would be good to seek out a light lunch, and this was a perfect opportunity to drop down into the Baixa and check out one of it’s venerable institutions, Restaurante Nova Pombalina.

Our third full day in Lisbon involved a trek up to visit Igreja da Graça, one of Libson’s oldest churches and convents, which sits atop one of the city’s tallest hills (and, coincidentally, has an extremely nice rooftop terrace for viewing the city). Before heading up there, we stopped for breakfast, settling on a small place we had encountered a few times before: Hello Kristof.

Our third day in Lisbon was mostly spent visiting the Gulbenkian Museum, which has both classical and modern art wings, and one of the better collections of Rembrandt, Monet, Rubens, Manet, Renoir, and Degas. Between doing the classical wing and the modern art wing, we decided to break for lunch, and head to the nearby El Corte Ingles (a chain of Spanish department stores) to check out their food court on the top floor. It’s an impressive food court, with a selection of Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, and Brazilian restaurants around a central seating court. After reviewing several of the menus, we settled on the Brazilian place, Jacaré.

While much of our dining in Portugal focused on Portuguese cuisine, there was one particular ethnic cuisine I was looking to experience, and knew we could find several examples of in Lisbon: Goan Cuisine. Goa, an Indian State in the Konkan region, was Portuguese ruled from 1510 to 1961, and the cuisine of Goa diverged a bit from the surrounding Konkan region over this period, mostly by adapting Portuguese customs (particularly, the use of pork and beef), customs (using vinegar), and ingredients (pineapple, cashews, guavas, tomatoes, and potatoes were all introduced by the Portuguese to Goa). The resulting Goan cuisine remains distinct, and there are quite a few restaurants around Lisbon either labeling themselves Goan, or labeling themselves “Indian” but with heavy Goan influence. One of the better-rated ones, on the edge of the Moorish quarter, is Tentações de Goa (“Temptations of Goa”), and we decided to check them out for our second dinner in Lisbon.

After we returned to central Lisbon from Belém, we were looking for a light lunch, and that was a particularly good opportunity to visit Time Out Market Lisboa. Set up within half of Lisbon’s Mercado da Ribeira on Lisbon’s waterfront, Time Out Market is one of these modern “Food Hall” (upscale food courts) with a collection of independent restaurants all running food service stalls, with central seating and table bussing. This was the hot new trend in dining in the years leading up to the Pandemic (I particularly have experienced a few like Eataly and Galley Group), but Time Out Market was one of the earlier ones, and still thriving. In fact, almost a little too thriving: at most lunchtimes, the place is packed with little seating. But there’s a small secret to Time Out Market Lisboa: along the western side of the market is a secondary hallway that features the same restaurants as that side of the Market, but with counter seating. It’s a bit less busy, and that’s where we found our lunch, at Sea Me.

My last post covered one of the best-rated places to get Portugal’s most famous dessert/snack treat, Pastéis de Nata, at Manteigaria in central Lisbon. However, no discussion of Pastéis de Nata is complete without a discussion of another, similar famous Pastéis, the Pastéis de Belém. Unlike the ubiquitous Pastéis de Nata, Pastéis de Belém are basically available from one place, the eponymous Pastéis de Belém bakery in Lisbon’s Belém waterside district.