the food
Reading a Lisbon tasca: petiscos, bifanas and salt cod
The small plates, sandwiches and staples that turn up on a Baixa food walk, and what each one is.
Reserve a place on the Baixa walk ↗A Lisbon tasca, dish by dish
| Dish | What it is | Where the tours show it |
|---|---|---|
| Petiscos | Small plates for sharing | The Baixa tour is built from them |
| Bifana | Pork cutlet in a warm roll | The Baixa tour, the fifteen-tasting walk and the morning tour |
| Bacalhau | Salt cod, in hundreds of recipes | Codfish cake on the fifteen-tasting walk; salt cod on the morning tour |
| Chouriço and presunto | Smoked sausage and cured ham | Chouriço with wine on the fifteen-tasting walk; Iberian ham on the morning tour |
| Pastel de nata | Egg custard tart | Shown being made on the morning tour |
Petiscos: the way a tavern meal is built
A petisco is a small plate, and a tasca is the sort of neighbourhood tavern that serves them. A meal there is assembled rather than ordered in courses: a few things arrive, you share them, and then something else comes. The Baixa tour is made of this kind of eating, with eight tastings spread over taverns, street-food counters and family-run eateries. That is why the tour counts as dinner even though you never sit through a three-course menu. The plates come in quick succession, each paired with a drink, and the guide says what you are eating and why it belongs in Lisbon.
The bifana
Bifana literally means small steak. It is a classic Portuguese sandwich: pork chops, steak or loin, pounded thin or sliced, simmered with garlic and wine and tucked into heated bread. Mustard, hot sauce or sauteed onions are common variations. In the north the pork is shredded and served with a sauce, while in the south it is a lighter sandwich with a cutlet and a light marinade. In Lisbon taverns, the bifana and its beef cousin the prego are popular snacks served at the counter with a large mug of beer. The Baixa tour counts the bifana among its iconic bites, and the other two tours each include one as well.
Bacalhau, the national fish
Salt cod is the most widely eaten fish in Portugal, and it is said there are at least 365 ways to cook it, one for every day of the year. The fish is almost always dried and salted, because Portugal's North Atlantic fishing tradition grew up before refrigeration, and it has to be soaked before cooking. Portugal has been fishing and trading cod since the 15th century. On the fifteen-tasting walk the first glass of Vinho Verde comes with a codfish cake, and on the morning tour the guide explains the country's long attachment to salt cod at a grocery store before you try another local product, acorn-fed Iberian ham.
Chouriço, presunto and cheese
Chouriço is a Portuguese sausage made from pork, fat, paprika, garlic and salt, sometimes with wine, stuffed into natural casings and slowly dried over smoke. Presunto, the Portuguese cured ham, is cut thin and eaten as an aperitif. Cheese, which traditional Portuguese cooking rarely uses as an ingredient, is eaten on its own before or after the main dishes; Queijo da Serra da Estrela is the most famous. On the fifteen-tasting walk, a stop serves chouriço with bread and a glass of red wine, and a Port is paired with a local cheese at another.
Seafood and tinned fish
Portugal's seafood list runs from fresh sardines to octopus, squid, clams and mussels, and the Baixa tour's tastings include seafood favourites. Sardines were once preserved in brine, and canneries later grew all along the coast; canned sardines or tuna with boiled potatoes and greens count as a convenient meal. The morning tour devotes a stop to this history, outside a traditional tinned-fish shop, where the guide explains that the gourmet cans have been a staple of Iberian cooking for over a century, long before they went viral.
A custard tart to finish
The pastel de nata is a Portuguese egg custard tart, optionally dusted with cinnamon. It grew out of a recipe created before the 18th century by monks at the Jerónimos Monastery in Belém, and in 2011 a public vote named it one of Portugal's Seven Wonders of Gastronomy. Portuguese breakfast often includes one with a small espresso, called a bica. The morning tour ends at the Manteigaria, where you watch the tarts being made and bite into your own. The Baixa tour ends on a traditional Portuguese dessert, and guests who have written about it describe finishing on pastéis de nata.
Iscas, pregos and old tavern orders
Iscas, thin slices of fried liver, were a favourite request in old Lisbon taverns, often served with sautéed potatoes and then known as iscas com elas. Small beef or pork steaks in a roll, the prego and the bifana, are the popular snacks that went with them, served at the counter with a large mug of beer. In modern days, a prego or a bifana eaten at a snack-bar counter can be a whole lunch. If you see either on a chalkboard during a tasting walk, you are looking at the tavern tradition the walks are built to introduce.
When Lisbon eats
Portuguese lunch is served between noon and two o'clock, often lasting over an hour, and dinner is generally served around eight. A Portuguese breakfast is usually fresh bread with butter, ham, cheese or jam, with coffee, and sweet pastries are common too. That rhythm explains the three Lisbon tours: the morning walk is built around breakfast and lunch, while the Baixa tour and the fifteen-tasting walk cover the hours when Lisbon sits down to eat in the evening. Eating at the local time, rather than early, is part of what makes a tasting walk feel like the city.