Best restaurants to taste local cuisine in Lisbon

Alma’s new location, in the heart of the Chiado neighbourhood just next to A Vida Portuguesa, opens up a whole new range of opportunities for the Chef. “We were in a small space in Santos, with a small kitchen, and with a very special target audience – people would go to Santos just to visit Alma. We almost never had walk-in clients. Chiado is very different.”

Belcanto opened in 1958 in Chiado, in the São Carlos square next to the São Carlos National Theatre. In the summer of 2011, Chef José Avillez took an interest in Belcanto and began an extensive refurbishment of the kitchen and dining areas. José Avillez’s Belcanto restaurant re-opened at the beginning of 2012, totally renewed. At Belcanto, awarded a Michelin star within a year of its opening, and two stars within three years, one can enjoy new Portuguese cuisine in an elegant atmosphere that still provides some of the former romance of the Chiado district.

Before opening Epur, the French chef Vincent Farges worked at the Michelin star restaurant of Hotel Fortaleza do Guincho.

JNCQUOI is a restaurant, a deli bar, a grocery, a Parisian pastry gems joint (Ladurée), an Assouline’s fine books corner and fashion store. Where? JNcQUOI wouldn’t have that Parisian je ne sais quoi, if it wouldn’t be in the most luxurious avenue in Lisbon, Avenida da Liberdade.

An olive tree inside, a suspended couvert, a kitchen that is bigger than the room and absolutely no clear distinction between main dishes, starters or anything else, really, Loco is an absolutely unique restaurant in Lisbon; it has no à la carte menu, what you get is what the Chef purchases that morning from the local market.

Located only a few steps from Sé, Lisbon’s cathedral, there is Prado. Prado occupies a former cannery, where there are also Roman ruins, where the wine cellar is placed.