Lisbon

Cape Verde in Lisbon: Go Deep

On the last floor of a high building in Marquês de Pombal – Lisbon’s financial and commercial area – is the headquarters of the Associação Cabo Verde, the oldest of its kind in the capital. Its unexpected location aside, it draws many from the community who need support with issues relating to law and integration issues and acts as a central meeting point for all types, including academics. As well as organizing events focusing on post-colonial Cape Verde and its diaspora, the association also hosts regular festive lunches (almoço dancantes), with live music on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Worldwide

Cape Verde in Lisbon: History

Cape Verdeans, particularly those from the island of Santiago, form one of the biggest migrant communities in Portugal. Because of the cyclical drought that afflicts the 10 volcanic islands making up this archipelago, the country’s sense of homeland coexists with the idea of movement, with Cape Verde recognized by many as an essentially diasporic nation.

Lisbon

Dhaka Restaurante: Favored Curry

Every late morning from the ground floor of a typical Lisbon building, the façade of which displays a tile-painted Madonna, a hunger-inducing scent pervades the street. Dhaka Restaurante is one of many canteens in the Mouraria neighborhood preparing its lunchtime curry. Along Rua Benformoso, among the small shops selling jewelry, trinkets and Chinese-made goods, are several restaurants that have fed the local community from the Indian subcontinent for years. Today, however, they aren’t just cooking for them. Due to a rapid process of urban transformation, mainly thanks to tourism and interested investors, more and more people from Lisbon and further afield are passing through this winding thoroughfare looking for alternative flavors.

Lisbon

Chafariz do Vinho: The Fountain of Wine

Beneath modern Lisbon lies a complex network of galleries belonging to the city’s 18th-century aqueduct, a monumental structure that resisted the 1755 earthquake that devastated much of the capital. The aqueduct’s 58 km of tunnels and underground channels distributed water to 33 chafarizes (fountains) – often ornamental – to supply the city with drinking water. One of them, located along the steep steps connecting the Avenida and Príncipe Real neighborhoods, now houses Chafariz do Vinho, the Portuguese capital’s oldest enoteca, or wine bar.

Lisbon

Palanca Gigante: Luanda Meets Lisbon

Palanca Gigante is an Angolan tasca in multicultural Mouraria, Lisbon’s medieval downtown district. The restaurant is named after a critically endangered species of antelope (the palanca negra gigante, or giant sable antelope) that was adopted as an Angolan national symbol after that country’s independence from Portugal in 1975. Though regular Portuguese tascas – no-frills eateries – in Lisbon are far less endangered, it is harder to find authentic food from Portugal’s former colonies at such approachable prices in the city center.

Lisbon

Reviravolta: Fernando’s Hideaway

A particularly eye-catching landmark in Lisbon’s Alfama district is the Casa dos Bicos (“House of the Spikes”), a 16th-century palace – once home to the Portuguese viceroy of India, and now housing the José Saramago Foundation – that has a bizarre façade of spiked stones and eclectic doors and windows. Just next to it is Reviravolta, a modest neighborhood tasca that serves up a dish with similarly iconic status: cozido a Portuguesa. One of the most traditional Portuguese meals, cozido has humble origins; first invented in the interior Beira region, it was a dish to use up all the week’s lunch leftovers. It consists of a mixture of several kinds of meat, including chicken, pork ribs, pork belly, pig’s ear, beef shank and assorted offal, complemented by different smoked sausages: chouriço, fat and sweet paprika, blood sausage and farinheira – the latter a Jewish invention of wheat flour, paprika and pepper, nowadays mixed with pork fat. Cozido is accompanied by boiled vegetables such as beans, potatoes, cabbage, turnip greens and rice. All of that, on just one plate.

Lisbon

A Taste of Home: Lisbon Cultural Associations

Portuguese regional food can be found easily in Lisbon, but at Grupo Excursionista e Recreativo Os Amigos do Minho, it is one of its raisons d’êtres. This warren of rooms that occupy a 19th-century tile-clad building not only works as a restaurant; the small cultural association has been a point of encounter for internal migrants moving from the northernmost Portuguese region of Minho since the 1950s. For all that time, this humble spot has kept the Minho culture alive in the capital, as well as renting out the space to young music promoters and cultural producers. Here you can experience rowdy parties with northern-style dances, live performances of the “concertina” (a typical accordion from the region) and, most importantly, group dinners with local, traditional food.