10 places I recommend•1 in the Michelin guide
These are the 10 restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops and ice cream shops in Porto I have eaten at myself and would recommend.
A bistro in Foz do Douro, a block back from the beach, in an old villa still wearing the black and yellow geometric tiles that became the family's mark. It opened in 1995 as Vasco Mourão's first restaurant, and the kitchen cooks Portuguese dishes with a French accent, finishing with the crepe queimado it has served for thirty years. This was the best meal we had in Porto, so if you can only pick one place for dinner during your visit, make it this one.
Address: Rua do Padrão 100, 4150-557 Porto, Portugal
José Avillez's casual restaurant is on Rua de Mouzinho da Silveira, the street that runs down towards the Ribeira. It opened in September 2014, the first time he took his restaurant outside Lisbon, in a room panelled in celadon blue with old kitchen tins and utensils hanging overhead, serving Portuguese cooking loosened up by his travels. A great place for traditional food with a modern approach.
Address: R. de Mouzinho da Silveira 166, 4050-416 Porto, Portugal
The bar and bistro at The Yeatman, the wine hotel on the Gaia hillside, where the terrace looks back across the Douro at Porto and the decanter-shaped infinity pool sits just below. The menu is lighter than the hotel's dining room, running from salads to Porto's own francesinha. We specifically went to try the francesinha, which did not disappoint.
Address: Rua do Choupelo, 4400-088 Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal
An Italian restaurant on Rua de Passos Manuel, in a room of stone walls and wooden galleries where the shelves are stacked with the products they cook from. Chef Pedro Rocha's kitchen sits between Italy and Portugal, and the grilled octopus and the squid ink linguine are the dishes people come back for.
Address: R. de Passos Manuel 18, 4000-381 Porto, Portugal
A large restaurant on Rua Brito e Cunha in Matosinhos, the fishing port north-west of the city, seating a few hundred and busy with families. The kitchen runs on two tracks, Italian dishes on one side and a sushi counter on the other.
Address: R. Brito e Cunha 354, 4450-189 Matosinhos, Portugal
A pastry shop on Rua Formosa across from the Mercado do Bolhão, opened in 1896 to feed the merchants working the market and still baking everything on the premises. Behind the old shopfront there are mirrors, painted panels and iron railings, with pão de ló and bolo-rei among the things the counter is known for.
Address: R. Formosa 339, 4000-252 Porto, Portugal
A pastelaria on Praça de Guilherme Gomes Fernandes that began in 1920 as a dairy, the first in the north to deliver pasteurised milk in glass bottles. Its founder, Alexandre Furtado Mendonça, came back from Switzerland with the éclair, and the whipped cream éclairs, the chocolate one above all, are what the queue is for.
Address: P. de Guilherme Gomes Fernandes 47, 4050-293 Porto, Portugal
A pastry shop in Guimarães, an hour east of Porto, selling the sweets the town is known for. They come out of the old convent kitchens, the Poor Clares of Santa Clara chief among them, and include tortas de Guimarães and toucinho-do-céu.
Address: Edificio Principe Real, R. do Salgueiral Loja A, 4835-101 Guimarães, Portugal
The Belle Époque café on Rua de Santa Catarina, opened in December 1921 as the Elite and renamed the Majestic a year later. João Queiroz's Art Nouveau room, all carved wood, tall mirrors, moulded plaster and leather benches, drew the city's writers and thinkers, then fell into decline; it was listed as a building of national interest in 1983 and reopened restored in 1994.
Address: R. de Santa Catarina 112, 4000-442 Porto, Portugal
The Porto branch of Santini, tucked into the Via Catarina centre on Rua de Santa Catarina. It scoops the same gelato Attilio Santini began making for bathers on the Tamariz beach at Estoril in 1949, to a recipe the family has never published.
Address: R. de Santa Catarina 312, 4000-433 Porto, Portugal
