Thirty-year-old João Cura and his wife, 29-year-old Sofia Gomes, may be young but they have long had a wish to open their own restaurant. Yet it was never totally clear where or when they would fulfill this dream: both are originally from Coimbra, a city in central Portugal, and worked for years in Barcelona. The couple finally found a perfect spot, in Porto of all places, to open Almeja, which fittingly means “to want or to wish for something very much” in Portuguese. Talk about a dream come true.

A gloppy, meaty, cheesy brick served in a pool of sauce and with a mountain of fries: please meet the francesinha, the culinary pride and joy of the city of Porto. Today, restaurant billboards proclaim in many languages that they serve the best version in the world, revealing the genuine power of this artery-clogging combination that, incredibly, was originally conceived as a snack. We have to say it though: eating a francesinha is worth every last calorie. This dense sandwich, which is impossible to eat just with your hands, is often considered the lusophone version of the croque monsieur.

Forget the famous francesinha. The best sandwich in Porto – arguably in the country – can be found in a little 1970s tile-lined eatery; the unremarkable interior belies the iconic status of its most celebrated dish. Served up on the corner of Praça Poveiros, a square named after the fishermen from the storied maritime city Póvoa de Varzim, located just north of Porto, the sandes de pernil (roast pork sandwiches) are a curious joy to watch being assembled as well as, of course, to eat. One by one, roast pork legs are slowly cooked in the huge oven in the kitchen behind the bar of Casa Guedes. They are then served directly from the roasting tray by the owner himself, Mr. Cesar.