We were staying in Bairro Alto in Lisbon which is now a pretty touristy part of town, but peppered with lots of great bars and restaurants.
I had read that Taberna Da Rua Das Flores was a small but very popular restaurant serving traditional Portuguese fare in an atmospheric narrow terrace just near Lago Chiado. We arrived about 9.30pm and put our names down for the first available table which we were told would be about an hour later. When in Lisbon, plan to eat late!!
We wandered over the road to Palacio Chiado, a fabulous restaurant and bar in a converted palace. We ate freshly shucked oysters and had a few drinks as a pre-cursor to dinner.
When we wandered back over to the Taberna, we were invited to sit on the stairs inside and contemplate the blackboard menu with the daily specials all written in Portuguese while we waited another 15 minutes or so for our table. Even though it was about 10.45pm by now the restaurant was still hopping.
The waiter helped us understand the menu and we ordered grilled prawns, the tomato salad featuring multiple different types of delicious tomatoes and pork with onions and coriander.
Dinner kicked off in traditional style with bread and olives and we ordered a bottle of Vale Da Capucha Fossil 2016 organic red wine. Vale Da Capucha is a winery on the Atlantic coast near Lisbon. It was very nice.
In fact the entire dinner was lovely and we really felt like we had experienced a traditional Portuguese Taberna. See below the description of the restaurant with more details from the Lisboa Cool website.
And with the bill, came 2 complimentary glasses of Ginja, Portuguese cherry liquer to apologise for the lengthy wait! They had apparently unfortunately run out of the chocolate cups that the liquer is served in but it was delicious anyway.
(From Wikipedia: Ginjinha or simply Ginja, is a Portuguese liqueur made by infusing ginja berries (sour cherry, Prunus cerasus austera, the Morello cherry) in alcohol (aguardente is used) and adding sugar together with other ingredients.)
“The decor is reminiscent of old taverns and the menu, which is surprisingly presented to each table on a giant blackboard, displays the daily dishes/snacks. The selection refers to snacks of yesterday, genuinely Portuguese, from the north to the south of the country, covering our most typical food, but with a very simple contemporary twist.
The house wine is served in low glasses, the lemonade according to Portuguese tradition, and the snacks are always split up, after all, the Portuguese like to share!
The highlight goes to the clams, very tasty, as well as the fresh tuna in sesame, topped off with a chocolate mousse with cherry and liquor dessert, which together, makes a great combination. Never count on the same dish: dishes are made with whatever is fresh that day, and are generally guided by the chef’s taste and inspiration.
Here you can only pay in cash, so forget the credit card, just like in old Lisbon!” From Lisboa Cool website
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