It’s a bit of culinary magic. Plain old black-eyed peas are transformed into a fluffy white cloud, before somehow changing once again, this time into a crimson, crispy fritter. This is acarajé, and as a dish with origins in Bahia, the homeland of Afro-Brazilian spirituality, other types of magic can also play a role. In Lisbon, you can witness the results of this transformation at Acarajé da Carol. “There are other people [in Portugal] making acarajé, but they’re not from Bahia!” the eponymous owner – full name Carol Alves de Brito – tells us. Bahia, Carol’s homeland, is the region of Brazil with the strongest links to Africa. Salvador, the state’s capital, was once a major destination in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and today it’s the largest Black city outside of Africa.

Lisbon is changing so fast that it’s quite refreshing when a restaurant opens without proclaiming a twist or a “concept.” When Canalha was announced, it stirred great curiosity among local diners – and for good reason. A talented chef, renowned for Michelin-starred restaurant Feitoria, as well as the itinerant project Residência in 2023, was leaving fine dining to open a place with Portuguese fare sprinkled with a bit of Spanish inspiration. Just a few days after opening in November, Canalha became the talk of the town, and now you need to book a table for dinner weeks in advance.

We’ve long been tasca hounds, searching out the best that Lisbon has to offer. But in the last few years, a good number of our favorites have closed: the perfect storm of spiking rents, real estate interests, and aging owners and clients have stacked the odds against these small, cheap, familiar restaurants. For a while, the stream of closures had us thinking that the Lisbon tasca scene might face complete extinction sooner than expected. But while doing research for a story on summer tascas – places with outside seating, grilled food or simple dishes similar to the ones you can eat by the beach – we found hope, in an unexpected way.