The Ultimate Portuguese Dining (and Wine!) Guide
Portuguese cuisine offers a wide range of unique and delicious dishes, from mouth-watering fish to succulent meat to sweet desserts – all served with a range of delectable local wines.
Here’s a small selection of national dishes to try on a visit to Portugal.
Seafood
Seafood is one of the things Portugal does best. Their national dish is bacalhau. With fine salted cod as the main ingredient, it is said that this dish can be cooked in 365 different ways (one for every day of the year), including being roasted, baked or boiled and accompanied by everything from cream, cheese and onions to spinach, garlic and carrots. The best version for newcomers to try is the popular bacalhau á bras – fried with egg, onions and potatoes.
Clams, or ameijos in Portuguese, served bulhao pato style, are also popular in Portugal. This epic snack is cooked in olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and plenty of cilantro, and sometimes with white wine, butter and herbs. Bread on the side is a must to dip in the delicious sauce.
Seafood lovers can also order sapateira recheada, which can be found on the menu of any marisqueira (seafood restaurant). You’ll get an entire stone crab full of crabmeat stuffing that will tickle any taste-bud. It is also a surprisingly affordable meal option. Visitors should note that most Portuguese shellfish is at its best when served between September and April.
Meat
Outside of the sea, a starter or snack in Portugal is snails. As opposed to French escargots, Portuguese snails are piled onto a plate, forming a small mound. Most locals enjoy caracóis at some of the many tavernas showing football.
The Portuguese also love their pork, with porco negra a particular favorite. Stemming from the black Alentejan pigs, which have been fed acorns to give them a sweet flavor, carne de porco à Alentejana is a traditional and particularly delicious dish, which combines pork, wine, paprika, clams and black olives and is typically served with either roasted or fried potatoes.
Drink
All main courses should be accompanied by one of Portugal’s world famous wines. Notably, their light, slightly sparkling vinhos verdes, or green wines, are worth ordering with seafood. It’s a unique type of wine, mainly produced in the Minho region and surprisingly addictive on hot summer nights. More into red wines? Ask for a bottle from the Alentejo or Dão regions.
Dessert
With the fine range of savory dishes Portugal has to offer, one would almost be tempted to forget dessert, but please don’t – you would be missing out! Opt for the traditional egg tarts, known as pastéis. They come in many variations but you can be sure that this custard dessert wrapped in phyllo dough and dusted with sugar and cinnamon, is well worth an aching belly.
There’s also the matter of after-dinner drinks. It wouldn’t be a Portuguese food and drink extravaganza if you left out the classic port. Vinho do Porto is a famous, fortified wine produced from grapes grown in the vineyards of the Douro Valley, which is well worth a visit for any wine fan. If you’d prefer something even sweeter, try Madeira’s popular dessert wine.
So that’s your brief introduction to Portuguese dining. All that’s left to do is a raise your glass and say saúde (cheers)!
