Head due north from Portugal, and you’ll encounter Asturias, a region of Spain with a deep tradition of producing and drinking cider. Shift just east from there, and Spain’s Basque country has its own unique apple-based drink, known as sagardoa. And of course, France’s Atlantic coast has a longstanding, sophisticated tradition of turning apples and pears into alcohol. Back in Portugal, craft cider is, well, a lot harder to find. In recent years, commercial brands such as Bandida do Pomar – part of the company that produces Sagres beer and other products – have become common, but the drink is almost a novelty.

In a city where new restaurants and cafés – many directed at Lisbon’s new residents and digital nomads – pop up faster than we can keep track of, Gunpowder has set its sights on conquering the tastebuds of locals though Indian seafood dishes and spices. Harneet Baweja, originally from Calcutta, founded the original Gunpowder restaurant in London in 2015. A love for surfing drew him to the Portuguese capital, and he started making frequent trips to Lisbon and its surrounding beaches. “I absolutely love Lisbon, so it was a natural choice for me to open a restaurant here,” he says. “I fell in love with the city and the culture.” It was a love so strong that Baweja now divides his time between Lisbon and London, managing the several Gunpowder locations, while still chasing the waves of the Portuguese coast.

One of the joys of Lisbon’s food scene is the access it allows to cuisines from across the Lusophone world. And one of the most represented is the food of Cabo Verde (formerly known as Cape Verde), an archipelago of 10 islands off the western coast of Africa. Its ubiquity is due to immigrants from the islands, but also perhaps because it has so many links with the cuisine of Portugal. “Our ingredients [in Cabo Verde] are almost completely European,” explains Maria Andrade, better known as Milocas, the chef/owner behind By Milocas, a Cabo Verdean restaurant in Lisbon. “Our food has so much to do with Portugal. The way we prepare fish, octopus and seafood is similar to how they’re prepared in Portugal.”

Senhor António, the keeper of one of the oldest grocery shops in Lisbon, Mercearia Celta, died two weeks ago. With his passing, Culinary Backstreets Lisbon lost a dear friend and the city lost a living link to what is an increasingly disappearing past. “That’s life.” This phrase would end most of our conversations and visits to his tidy, old grocery shop. António da Fonseca, or Sr. António, as we knew him, was the most beloved inhabitant of the Campo de Ourique neighborhood and his corner shop a true neighborhood institution. He regularly welcomed guests on our Lisbon Awakens tour with never-ending enthusiasm and would be, for most visitors, the highlight of their walk.

In most countries around the world, it’s safe to say that steak is a minimalist affair – a dish that, in some cases, combines perhaps no more than beef and salt. In Portugal, however, people tend to go in the other direction. “It’s a steak that’s pan-fried, and served with smoked ham, bay leaf, garlic and white wine,” says Manuel Fernandes, when we ask him to describe the country’s signature steak dish, bife à portuguesa, “Portuguese-style steak.”

Lisbon’s communities from Portugal’s former colonies provide the strongest link to the country’s past, when it was the hub of a trading empire that connected Macau in the east to Rio de Janeiro in the west. Though integral elements of Lisbon life, these communities can sometimes be an invisible presence in their adopted land, pushed out to the periphery of the city. With our “Postcolonial Lisbon” series, CB hopes to bring these communities back into the center, looking at their cuisine, history and cultural life. In this third installment of the series, we dive into Lisbon’s Mozambican community. 

We didn’t exactly receive a warm welcome at Feira do Relógio, a weekly market that unfolds along a suburban strip north of Lisbon’s city center. “I saw you taking photos from the bridge! What are you doing?” shouted a man as he approached us aggressively. “You can’t take photos of people!” We explained calmly that we were taking photos for an article, and that people would not feature in those images. He hassled us a bit more before eventually wandering away. Later, we saw him selling knockoff socks from a bag slung over his shoulder. The rest of our visit was event-free, but the incident was a reminder of the occasional semi-legal nature of this market.

It was something almost unheard of: there was no line. We could have walked right into Pastéis de Belém, ostensibly the most famous pastry shop in Portugal – if not in the world – an exceedingly rare occurrence since Portugal’s tourism boom. But we had already wrangled a way in; we had an appointment with Miguel Clarinha, the fourth-generation owner of the iconic Lisbon bakery, who had agreed to give us a behind-the-scenes tour. Pastéis de Belém claims to be the inventor of the egg tart, known generally in Portugal as pastel de nata, “cream pastry,” but here as pastel de Belém. The story goes that the sweets – pastry cups filled with an egg and cream custard – have their origins in the Jerónimos Monastery, steps away from the bakery’s current location in Belém, just west of Lisbon.

“I’m afraid there are no tables for the next week or so.” This has become the most-repeated phrase lately at Taberna Sal Grosso, a small space which first made a significant impact in Lisbon restaurant scene nearly eight years ago. Now, after a couple of challenging years due to the pandemic, the 25-seat-spot is again one of the most coveted in town, attracting both locals and in-the-know visitors. If Sal Grosso (“Coarse Salt”) helped to breathe new life into the old Lisbon tradition of enjoying beer, wine and petiscos in a small tavern, its second life – now with new owners and chefs – brings another breath of fresh air to this corner of Santa Apolónia, on the margins of the Alfama neighborhood.

In a nation with so many baking and confectionary traditions, it’s surprising that one of the most popular cakes – the bolo-rei – was imported from another country (a sweet tooth does not discriminate, apparently). Translated as “king cake,” the bolo-rei was brought to Portugal from Toulouse, France, by one of the oldest bakeries in Lisbon, Confeitaria Nacional. Over the years, the bolo-rei has become a staple during the festive season: ubiquitous on the table before, during and after Christmas and New Year, and certainly a must for Dia de Reis (Epiphany) on January 6, when it’s baked in its fanciest form with a nougat crown (made of caramel and almonds) and fios de ovos (“egg threads,” or eggs drawn into thin strands and boiled in sugar syrup).

What a year this was. The breath of fresh air that returned to Lisbon after the lifting of pandemic regulations was tempered by the tragic return of war to Europe. Rising inflation and the difficulty local restauranteurs faced to find staff created further challenges for Lisbon’s food industry, which was only starting to emerge out of its Covid-induced slumber. Still, the summer of 2022 was quite busy for restaurants with crowds returning to gather around a table, celebrating food and wine without masks and without groups restrictions. We were happy to return to some of the places we love the most, and discover new restaurants, bars and bites that the past year has brought to Lisbon.

As amazing as Lisbon’s food and drink scene is, many of its markets are underwhelming. The sad truth is that it’s necessary to head outside of the capital to witness spaces that showcase the real bounty of Portugal’s fields, orchards, vineyards, farms and waters. The recently-renovated Mercado do Bolhão, in Porto, is one such place. Or the expansive, seafood-forward Mercado de Olhão, in the country’s far south. From Lisbon, visits to either of these would involve time-consuming trips, but thankfully, one of the country’s best markets is located an hour south of the city. 

The black-and-white photo shows a crowd, a policeman and José Martins holding a piece of salted cod, all crammed together in Manteigaria Silva, a small, historic shop in Baixa. It’s from a newspaper clipping dated December 10, 1977 – Christmas season. That year Portugal experienced a shortage of bacalhau, the beloved salt cod that was (and still is) a Christmas Eve favorite, and the people of Lisbon were so desperate to get their preserved fish that the police were often called in to maintain order. The scene at Manteigaria Silva played out at shops across the city. José, who still oversees the bacalhau section at Manteigaria Silva, remembers those days well. “Hard to imagine now but people were fighting for salt cod, that’s why we had to call the police,” he recalls.

While the pandemic has forced many restaurants in Lisbon to shutter their doors, even if only temporarily, and fight for their survival, it left chef Marlene Vieira with a related yet slightly different dilemma: Her latest venture, Zunzum Gastrobar, was scheduled to open in March, before being postponed indefinitely due to the Covid-19 lockdown. The delay worried Vieira – so much work had already gone into the project. As the city started coming back to life, the chef assessed the situation and felt it was better to open in the beginning of August rather than waiting for September, when the reopening of schools and other measures might bring new challenges to everyday life. “Now it’s a relaxed time, people are on holidays or feeling less stressed,” she says.

In Portuguese, it’s now known as Efeito Time Out, the “Time Out effect.” An iconic fresh market – for example, Lisbon’s Mercado da Ribeira – is renovated and rebranded, given a new life, albeit one that has little to do with the traditional Portuguese market. In 2014, the Time Out media brand took over control of more than half of Lisbon’s central market, renaming it Time Out Market Lisbon, and essentially turning it into a food hall, one that is largely frequented by tourists. On the market’s opposite side, the neat rows of produce, fish and meat vendors remain, but just barely. It would be easy to heap blame on the Time Out group, but the truth is, across Lisbon, fresh markets are dying.