Restaurants in Central Portugal
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Restaurante Zé Manel
Tucked down a nondescript alleyway, this little gem, which is papered with scholarly doodles and scribbled poems, is easy to miss. Despite its location, it’s highly popular, so come early or be ready to wait. Try the good feijoada á leitão (a stew of beans and suckling pig).
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Pastelaria Conventual
An atmospheric pastry shop serving strong coffee and sweet desserts to a largely local crowd. Try regional specialties like toucinho da abadessa, a kind of almond fruitcake.
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Dom Joaquim
Housed in a renovated building, Dom Joaquim offers fine dining in a contemporary setting. Modern artworks line the stone walls, and cane chairs grace clothed tables. While it’s smart and trendy, it offers excellent traditional meat-based (including game) and seafood dishes, such as perdiz (partridge) and caçao (dogfish). For dessert, we dare you to try the toucinho ransoso dos santos – literally translated as ‘rancid lard of the saint’. Oh so sweet.
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Zé Carioca
Set in a series of colourfully decorated rooms in a handsome old town house, this Brazilian eatery is both relaxed and elegant. The grilled meats, moqueca de camarão (shrimp stewed with coconut milk, tomatoes and cilantro) and caipirinhas are all superb. The weekday per-kilo lunch buffet is a good deal, as is the rodizio de carnes on Sunday afternoon (€11.90 for all the meat you can eat and still waddle home).
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Botequim da Mouraria
The town’s culinary shrine may be O Fialho, but some gastronomes believe this place is better. Poke around the old Moorish quarter to find this cosy spot serving some of Évora’s finest food and wine (the owner currently stocks more than 150 wines from the Alentejo alone). There are no reservations, nor tables – just 12 stools at a counter.
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Tasquinha d’Oliveira
Tasquinha d’Oliveira This delightful, intimate restaurant (14 places) has tables decked out with crisp white tablecloths and is decorated with ceramic plates. The menu features a small selection of well-prepared Alentejan cuisine. Judging by the framed write-ups on the wall, this restaurant has already been noticed.
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Zona Verde Restaurante
This smart restaurant may have done a modern renovation (it replaced the original azulejos ), but thankfully, it hasn’t changed its traditional cuisine. It serves massive portions of excellent regional specialities, including ensopado de borrego (lamb stew). Warning: even the half servings are massive.
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Cantinas
Cheap and filling cafeteria food abounds at the university’s student cantinas, off the courtyard of the AAC – one upstairs at the back (southern) end and one down a flight of steps on the eastern side. The downstairs restaurant generally has better food but is also more likely to ask to see student ID.
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Restaurante Tabuleiro
Located just off Tomar’s main square, this undistinguished-looking eatery with multilingual menus posted out front doesn’t immediately inspire confidence, but step inside and you’ll discover a family-friendly local hang-out with warm, attentive service, great food and ample portions.
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Restaurante Cozinha de Santo Humberto
This is a traditional, long-established place, in a grand arched, whitewashed cellar hung with brass and ceramics. It offers hearty servings of rich regional fare – try the arroz com pato (duck risotto). It has an excellent plaza-side cafe serving similar (but lighter) bites.
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Restaurante Italia
Cheery Italia serves reasonably good Italian food, but what really draws the crowds is its incomparable location. The sunny glass-walled dining room is cantilevered out over the Rio Mondego, while breezy outdoor tables bask in the shade of giant sycamores in the adjacent riverside park.
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Restaurante O Fialho
People talk in awed tones of O Fialho, such is the quality of its food. Spread over several small rooms and with wood panelling and white tablecloths, this restaurant manages to be smart yet unpretentious. It serves up professional service and top-quality Alentejan cuisine.
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Snack-Bar Restaurante A Choupana
Snack-Bar Restaurante A Choupana This is a tiled, busy place where many locals opt to sit on stools at a long bar. There’s a TV, lots of knick-knacks and tasty daily mains. Attached is an appealing restaurant served by efficient bow-tied waiters.
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Cozinha das Rainhas
Attached to the Casa das Senhoras Rainhas hotel, this elegant restaurant offers some of the finest dining in Óbidos, and award-winning desserts like pêra escarlate – pears with panna cotta in a ginjinha (cherry liqueur) reduction.
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São Rosas
White tablecloths under whitewashed arches equal rustic meets smart, and the food is great, featuring some unusual starters (such as smoked salmon and buttery, garlic-covered clams), pork and clams, and gaspacho in summer. It’s near the former palace.
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Molho de Brócolos
Feijoada with vegan ‘sausage’? Miso soup in Portugal? It’s enough to make a vegetarian swoon! Hidden on the 4th floor of a movie theatre-turned-shopping mall, this new arrival serves reasonably priced organic and vegetarian food.
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Porta Larga
For a quick snack with a hefty dose of local flavour, António’s sandes de leitão (roast pork sandwich) can’t be beat, although it’s best avoided if you’re squeamish about little piggies turning on spits.
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Restaurante Tomaz
Popular with locals, this simple, appealing place has a cosy tiled dining room and outdoor seating on a wide, leafy street. Specialities include Portuguese dishes such as bacalhau à brás (salt-cod fried with onions and potatoes).
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Bar Lagar da Mouraria
Enjoy the simple menu of tapas, cheese, sausage, sandwiches or fish soup in this lovely traditional bar behind the post office. It’s housed in a former winery, with beamed ceiling, a flagstone floor and seats around a massive old winepress.
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Conchina da Nazaré
This simple place with outdoor seating on a backstreet square serves good-value seafood, including wood-grilled fish and delicious açorda de marisco (thick bread soup with seafood). Many nights there are more locals than tourists.
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Macguls
Next to the river, this upmarket Indian place occupies a grand 19th-century dining room, fitted out with deep reds and yellows. Food is not exactly Indian, but it's fresh, fragrant and tasty - and about the only non-Portuguese fare on offer.
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Restaurante Zé Neto
This marvellous family-run place specialises in homemade Portuguese standards, including cabrito (kid). Come in the late morning and you’ll catch the elderly owner tapping out the menu on a typewriter of similar vintage.
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Café Alentejo
With arched rooms painted in pale gold and red, and blues forming the soundtrack, this is an appealing, relaxed restaurant, with well-spaced tables and traditional Alentejan specialities, featuring lots of bread, coriander and garlic.
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A Cadeia
The restaurant serves petiscos (snacks; €4.50 to €6.50) plus free-range meat dishes. There’s also an area for coffee and drinks under the building’s arch. The dessert menu is delectable.
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Restaurante Taverna
Set in a former chapel (note the vaulted ceiling), and with drawings of Évora’s plazas along the stone walls, Taverna serves a solid menu (pork with Madeira, chicken with roasted capsicums) at fair prices.
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