Though Pedro Bandeira Abril is only 29 years old, he is anything but a rookie – and good thing, too. The chef, who was cooking family meals from the age of 16, is now in charge of the two restaurants at Chapitô, Lisbon’s circus school, which have grown immensely popular with locals in this pandemic summer, thanks to their prime location and outdoor seating. Chapitô has always had one of the best terraces in the city. The school, which opened in 1986, is nestled uphill on Costa do Castelo, close to the iconic castle of São Jorge, in a building that used to be a juvenile detention center. Led by circus legend Teresa Ricou, it has long played a very important role in the performing arts.

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.

Olhão in the Algarve doesn’t have the picture-perfect scenery – the beautiful rocky cliffs cascading into the sea – normally associated with the region. But this fishing town managed to avoid the overdevelopment that has plagued other fishing villages in the region, like Albufeira or Armação de Pêra, now cautionary tales of how not to approach urban planning. At the heart of Olhão’s fantastic old city center, known for its cubist architecture, is one of Portugal’s best markets. It’s divided into two large red buildings with green domed towers, a distinctive feature that defines the town, especially when seen from the water. One building sells fish and shellfish from the rich Atlantic waters while the other has fruits, vegetables, nuts, cakes and cheese from the eastern side of the Algarve.

“Ó freguesa hoje temos a bela sardinha!” From afar, the fishmonger calls me to see her “beautiful sardine.” It is indeed a thing of beauty, this fish that the Portuguese love, especially in the summer when they are at their best – fat and full of flavor. Maria Alice has sardines, but also an incredible array of fresh fish from the waters south and north of Lisbon: cuttlefish, octopus, horse mackerel and mackerel as well as the prized ocean sea bass, sea bream and red snapper. Her friendly face is a reminder of how welcoming Mercado da Ribeira has been for generations of sellers and customers. Just as stalls are passed down from parents to children, so too is the habit of shopping there.

In the heat of the summer, there’s nothing quite like settling into a breezy spot close to vast blue of the Tagus River with some friends and a few snacks. But due to the city’s hills and its construction projects, it’s not always easy to find a nice place for a picnic close to the river. One consistently good spot, though, is Tapada das Necessidades, previously a royal park. It’s also conveniently close to the Alcântara neighborhood, home to some of our favorite food and wine shops. While we aren’t currently permitted to drink in public places – a new Covid-19 measure – we can still picnic with amazing produce while overlooking the river and the 25th April Bridge.

The dining room may be empty but João Gomes, his wife, Adelaide, and their son, Nuno, still beam a warm welcome as I enter their tasca. Monday – the first day when restaurants in Lisbon were allowed to open – was slow, they explain, and Tuesday was not much different, with only a few people sitting down for a meal. But they have faith that their regulars will start coming in June. “Things will get better, people are still fearful but they will come back,” João tells me. Their tasca, Imperial de Campo de Ourique, is one of the great classics still left standing in the city. They had sold out for many days in February and early March, as lamprey season was in full swing, but now that feels like a distant memory.

Editor’s note: As our cities begin reopening and adapting to the new normal in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, we are asking CB team members as well as chefs, journalists and food personalities to share the meal they are most looking forward to eating in our new “First Bite” series. First up is Célia Pedroso, our Lisbon bureau chief. Choosing a place for a first bite in Lisbon after all the restaurants, cafés and pastelarias have been closed for more than two months is not easy – there are so many options, and so many foods I’ve been missing. But after a few inquiries, I realized many places won’t open on Monday, May 18, the official date given by the government for the opening of restaurants, cafés, kindergartens and museums. So that narrowed down the list of possible venues.

From a humble petisco (“snack”) in tascas to a fancy dish in elegant restaurants, peixinhos da horta are experiencing a revival in Lisbon. Chefs have perfected their crispy texture and experimented with dipping sauces, turning them into a simple and delicious starter or a snack to pair with a cold glass of white wine. Peixinhos da horta (which translates as “little fish from the garden”) are nothing but green beans deep-fried in a batter. As a child, I often ate them on summer holidays in the Algarve; my granny fried them in small batches of four or five, similar to how she prepared small horse mackerel, in a delicate batter and served them with soupy tomato rice on the side.

Poverty and social problems are a worrying side effect of the pandemic, especially in big cities like Lisbon. As in most urban environments, there is a significant homeless population. Moreover, skyrocketing unemployment has meant more people than ever are in need of some assistance – families are struggling to pay their rent and put food on the table. The Portuguese have responded, however, to this large need with an equally large number of solidarity projects. While it’s impossible to name all the people involved who have stepped up to help, we thought it would be worth highlighting the efforts of many people in the food and wine industries.

One of the things we cherish most at Culinary Backstreets are the friendships we build with the restaurant and small business owners featured on our walks. While we worry what will happen to them (and their independent businesses) once the pandemic ends, we also want to learn more about what they are doing during this period. The first person we checked in with was chef Filipe Rodrigues, from Taberna do Mar. He hasn’t left home since he closed the small corner restaurant, one of the highlights of our Lisbon walk “Hidden Flavors of the Hillside: Graça and Mouraria,” on March 14. While the delicious fish dishes are always a big hit with our guests, they really seem to love chatting to Filipe and admiring his skills, especially when he torches the sardine nigiri.

Folar is the generic name given to traditional Easter sweet bread in Portugal. Making it from scratch is somewhat of a long process, but being confined due to the coronavirus crisis, we seem to have a bit more time on our hands than expected. My family’s folar recipe is from my grandmother Felismina, who was from Rosmaninhal, near Mação (in the center of Portugal). As long as I can remember we would have this sweet bread around Easter. (A similar type of sweet bread is also baked around November 1, for All Saints’ Day.)

Rua Antero de Quental is a short street that runs uphill from Avenida Almirante Reis – within whiffing distance of the famous Cervejaria Ramiro – to the pale yellow palace housing the Italian Embassy. Handsome 19th century buildings in various states of disrepair line both sides of the street. It’s a shortcut up to Campo Martires da Patria and over toward Avenida Liberdade so it gets a lot of thru traffic. A couple of haggard men stand at the bottom of the street waving people in toward parking spots up the street. At night, sometimes, African mestres leave flyers tucked under the windshield wipers of cars that offer remedies to all sorts of ailments. I collect these flyers.

My first reality shock with the quarantine and its food implications was when beans and chickpeas, both in tins and jars, started to disappear from the supermarket shelves. It was a sign of things to come. Portugal has been on official lockdown since last Saturday, but most of us spent the week leading up to the announcement voluntarily at home. Now, we are only allowed to go out to buy food, go to the pharmacy, work out or walk the dog. I have been taking advantage of that last reason – the dog has never walked so much in his short life. Plus, he’s not complaining about this new reality of having humans all day in the apartment.

Old Carnide feels like Lisbon’s land that time forgot. Just a 15-minute subway ride from the tourist bustle of downtown, tucked away behind a sprawling mega-mall and phalanxes of high-rise apartment blocks, it’s a neighborhood of cobbled lanes and pastel-painted 18th-century homes, where children play beside the cream-colored medieval church and graybeards argue soccer and politics under shady lime trees. Come lunchtime, however, and the sleepy, village-like calm is shattered. Cars honk for parking spaces, and packs of besuited business types, chatty troops of workmates, extended family groups and multiple couples suddenly emerge onto Carnide’s narrow streets with one thought in mind: food.

These days, plenty of traditional restaurants in Lisbon display in their windows a homemade sign reading “Há Lampreia.” We have lamprey. This simple message is usually illustrated by a pixelated photograph of said creature, almost always taken from Google. While lamprey, an eel-like fish, is one of the ugliest in mother nature’s portfolio, many people are delighted to look at it. That’s because lamprey, the ingredient, has a lot of fans in Portugal, especially in the areas around the rivers (Minho in the north, and Tejo in the center) where it is usually caught during its spawn migration period, from January to April.