Tarmac meet-and-greets. Exclusive airport lounges behind well-marked doors. Rolls-Royce transfers. Velvet ropes. These luxuries almost feel like something out of time, given the current obsession with discretion. But that’s what makes Madeira’s new Reserve hotel refreshing—it’s not afraid to be a place for people who want to flaunt their VIP status.
Local Flavor: where to eat and drink in Porto
05.04.2024 - 06:19 / lonelyplanet.com
I live in Lisbon but as a food and travel writer I frequently find myself in Porto. For me, a visit to the northern Portuguese city typically involves a peek at a new place or two interspersed with return visits to the classics. In particular, I always make a point of going to cafes, bars and restaurants that specialize in the flavors, dishes and drinks of Portugal’s far north – the kind of stuff that’s hard to find in Lisbon.
Although its food and drink scene is tiny, Porto is able to provide the new and the old, the domestic and the foreign, via a small but diverse restaurant and bar scene featuring the work of dedicated locals and newcomers, each with their own culinary panache. And warm northern Portuguese hospitality means that after a visit or two to some of these places, you, like me, may start to feel like a regular.
My favorite place in Porto to start the day is Confeitaria do Bolhão, a Portuguese-style pastry shop/cafe dating back to 1896. It doesn’t necessarily serve the best pastries in town, but I love the art nouveau vibe – the chairs, wall-length mirrors and stucco wall art could have been there since day one. It’s the perfect setting in which to try the uber-Portuguese breakfast of toast – thick slices of bread buttered on both sides, of course – and a galão, coffee supplemented with a generous amount of hot milk.
If I’m looking for something more contemporary, my go-to is Combi. Roasting in-house since 2014, a typical order here might take the form of a flat white and a Swedish cardamom bun.
Porto remains home to a handful of old-school bar/restaurants that specialize in northern-style smoked meats and other hearty snacks. Casa dos Presuntos “Xico” is the size of a large closet with hams hanging from the ceiling. Order a sandes de presunto, and you’ll receive a hillock of salty slices of cured ham and sheep’s milk cheese in a Portuguese roll. Hams also feature as interior design at Casa Louro, but are generally served on a plate, paired with broa de Avintes, an almost comically dense, dark bread made with rye and corn flours in the eponymous town outside of Porto.
Indeed, Porto is an excellent place to indulge in various combinations of bread and meat, which range in form from the legendary bifanas, braised slices of pork drizzled with chili oil and served in a Portuguese roll, at Astro, to the francesinha, the infamous Porto sandwich that combines steak, mortadella, two types of sausage and cheese in a spicy sauce, at A Regaleira.
If, like me, you’re willing to travel for a snack, consider a side trip to Matosinhos, accessible via a 30-minute ride on Porto’s Metro. The scruffy port town is home to Conservas Pinhais, a century-old fish canning factory that produces some of the country’s
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