151 Best Restaurants in Portugal

Perched on a hill overlooking Calheta, this family-run restaurant serves up an enormous range of fresh seafood with an equally expansive selection of wines. The menu is packed with island classics, including grilled scabbard fish served with a sweet banana and passion fruit sauce, served with a healthy side of bolo de caco.

Just inside the gates, this pleasant little restaurant in a restored stone house provides diners with a rustic yet elegant dining experience. It specializes in game dishes like roast wild boar and venison.

The inexpensive lunch specials at this streamlined dining room, just behind the municipal gardens, are popular with Funchal's businesspeople. Big portions of simple Madeiran cooking, such as espada, tuna, and grilled pork chops, are served with milho frito (corn fritters filled with garlicky collard greens). For something lighter, try the sopa de tomate e cebola com ovo (tomato and onion soup, garnished with a poached egg).

This is among a handful of atmospheric restaurants in Machico, set in the former market not far from sandy Praia de Machico. You can sit at the leafy outside terrace that has its own fountain while you enjoy simple dishes or just sip coffee.

If you've just visited the Piscifactoría de Ribeiro Frio, this family-owned eatery serves several dishes made with the trout from the local fish farm; the rustic wooden dining room is warmed by a couple of fireplaces. Finish your meal with coffee or tea served with Madeiran honey cake.

This cozy restaurant serves typical Alentejo delicacies---including javali à casa (fried wild boar) and açorda de perdiz (partridge bread soup)---made with the finest ingredients. Before you leave, take note of the açorda recipe, written on the walls of the restaurant.

The wooden sign and the rustic balcony outside this delightfully rustic restaurant in Gimonde, 8 km (5 miles) east of Bragança may remind Americans of the Old West. The menu features regional dishes such as garlicky alheira sausage and posta à Dom Roberto, the house steak, as well as local game. For dessert, try the creamy rice pudding or local cheese with homemade compote. If you feel like staying over, guest rooms (from €57) in the attached apartments have a rustic feel, but also modern conveniences.

The flagship of the mixed-use luxury development Prata Riverside Village, Rio de Prata is a reliable spot for classic Portuguese food with a river view. In summer, the waterside terrace becomes a popular gathering place for neighborhood residents. 

An Italian living in Lisbon had the odd but surprisingly successful idea of opening a restaurant that would serve only mushroom-based dinners. The chefs here have certainly managed to find a lot of ways to use mushrooms: in tartare, pâté, or croquettes, and even in ice cream.

Huge stone arches and a beautiful mural made of azulejo tiles grace this charming restaurant. Light Portuguese dishes are prepared with love and beautifully presented, and the cocktail list is impressive, too.

Overlooking the Rio Cávado, 4 km (2.5 miles) from Esposende, Sra. Peliteiro is housed in the clubhouse of a golf course, where players often stay on to enjoy the octopus, bacalhau, and hearty meat dishes produced by the eponymous chef, Paula Peliteiro. It's not just the usual regional fare: there's also a rump-steak tagine and Brazilian-style prawn moqueca (stew), and a good range of desserts, both traditional and modern.

Photos of satisfied patrons vie with bullfight posters on the wall of this rustic restaurant run by the great-grandson of the original owner, testifying to the popularity of its hearty traditional fare at affordable prices. Specialties—in servings large enough for two—include toiro bravo (wild bull) and entrecosto com arroz de feijoca (spareribs with red beans and rice), but the menu is overhauled daily. The restaurant now has several offshoots in the region, one of them in the Santarém Hotel.

The street lights will guide you to this family-run tavern in the heart of the city. With no menu in sight, you have to trust the chef; while the recipes change daily, the centerpiece is always the juicy black pork. The host brings you a continuous parade of dishes and keeps your wine glass brimming. Exposed brick adds warmth to the intimate dining room, which can accommodate only 30 people. 

Locals make their way up a steep hill to this restaurant for traditional dishes like roasted cod that are cooked with panache and served by a friendly staff. Steaks are a specialty, as are the mouthwatering desserts that include house-made cakes and tarts. On warm days the small terrace is delightful, and there is often live guitar music welcoming you at the door.

People might come for the views of the city and Tagus River, but they stay for the refined Portuguese cuisine, which blends tradition with modern flair. Named after the mythical water nymphs of the Tagus, Tagide is divided into two parts—a sleek modern dining room upstairs and a more relaxed wine-and-tapas bar downstairs. Both spaces face the river, with window tables highly sought after.

Tucked away on a side street far from the touristy seafront, this tavern attracts diners from far and wide with delicious fresh fish and meat dishes cooked in its wood-burning oven. There are changing daily specials, but regular dishes include bacalhau à tasca (fried codfish with onions and potatoes) and rice-stuffed cuttlefish.

At this restaurant in the center of town, the handful of tables in the convivial dining room spill out onto the sidewalk in warmer weather. Seafood petiscos (the Portuguese version of tapas) and a good wine selection are the main attractions. Don't expect the speediest service in town, but relax with a bottle of the house wine as waiters hurry past.

With tables nestled inside oversized wine barrels, Terra de Montanha has an interior design that's as memorable as the food. Try excellent specials such as bacalhau with onion escabeche and mayonnaise or a well-flavored meat dish such as the house veal, which is seasoned, grilled, and then roasted with potatoes before being served with sautéed vegetables. The kitchen stays open late here—dinner is served almost until midnight on weekends.

Inside a charming 1920s building in Póvoa de Varzim (Vila do Conde's twin to the north) that was Portugal's first brick-built theater, staff bustle about a high-ceilinged, white-painted space, serving well-priced cocktails, unusual snacks (ask for the day's specials), and classic northern Portuguese mains. Desserts are more international, including a salted chocolate mousse and lemon meringue tart. The family that runs the place also owns the town's oldest bookstore, and corridors and stairs around the dining area are lined with shelves; on your arrival you'll even find a book on your table to peruse.

Considered one of Portugal's best traditional restaurants, whose eponymous chef was in 2022 decorated by the country's head of state, "Aunt Alice" is in an inconspicuous house with French windows across from Fátima's parish church, just over 2 km (1.3 miles) from the shrine. The famed arroz de pato (duck rice) and bacalhau gratinado (baked salt cod with béchamel sauce) each serve two, but there are several other fine dishes worth trying. A flight of wooden stairs inside leads down to an intimate dining area with stone walls.

The secluded, under-the-radar restaurant at upscale Sapientia Boutique Hotel has a cozy stone-walled interior and a sunny, flower filled terrace garden. Both spaces are beautifully decorated, and the same attention to detail extends to the extensive menu of traditional dishes and tapas-style sharing plates like ceviche and regional cheese boards, perfectly paired with local wines.

Perched on a street overlooking the sea and harbor, this is a fantastic spot to see the sunset and dine on fresh fish. The daily catch is chalked on a board and grilled at an open kitchen—local produce usually includes scabbard (both black and white), bream, parrot fish, monkfish, bass, and lapas (limpets), all grilled to perfection and served with fine wines.