Where To Eat In Lisbon Now: 13 New (and New-Ish) Restaurants

Lisbon is booming like never before. And while this is not without its downsides, one upside is the increasingly diverse, improved restaurant scene. Since the last time I wrote a list, we’ve seen openings from foreign-born chefs serving their native cuisine, an outpost of a fancy London joint, and new and established Portuguese chefs serving ever more interesting and elevated takes on their traditional dishes—or others that they’ve perfected during their extensive travels. (Note: The list that follows is in alphabetical order.)

Ajitama Ramen Bistro

After starting as a supper club in a private apartment several years ago, Ajitama got a new home whose gorgeous design—267 sinuous pieces of wood that suggest the curves and fluidity of noodles—matches its high-quality ramen late last year. The new location also gives owners António Carvalhão and João Azevedo Ferreira, who both lived and worked in China and Japan in the past, space to fully commit to the authenticity of their craft: hand-making their noodles, simmering their meat-based or vegan broths for 18 or 20 hours and adding new snacks to the menu.

Boca Linda

Lisbon is awash in taco joints, but few have the quality and authenticity—both of the food and of the potent but tasty margaritas—of Boca Linda. Owner Alejandro (Alex) Gonzalez Duran landed in Lisbon through marriage and saw a gap in the city’s Mexican restaurants. He managed to put together a team of 100% Mexican cooks, with his cousin running the kitchen and their grandmother’s recipes on the menu: ceviche, aguachile, guacamole with chapulines (grasshoppers), and a standout dish of pescado bicolor, an impossibly moist white fish with red and green sauces.

Bougain

Maybe it’s the pretty garden setting—yes, there’s bougainvillea—or maybe it’s the unfussy but tasty food, but there’s a reason that this Cascais newcomer has already built a loyal following, with some guests already clocking 20 lunches in the two months the place has been open. It’s the latest project from Miguel Garcia, who also owns Lisbon’s esteemed steak house Café de São Bento, a little bastion of hospitality in the old city. Chef Diana Roque came up with a menu of classic dishes like steak tartare made tableside, enormous fresh oysters from Setubal (they ask their supplier for the very biggest ones), Niçoise salad, sole meunière, red prawn rice, and grilled entrecôte with Café Paris sauce.

Brilhante

Chef Luís Gaspar’s elegant new brasserie, Brilhante, has a glamour that wouldn’t be out of place in London or New York. Think fringed lamps, red velvet banquettes and studded leather chairs around the bar, which is the centerpiece of the room. Its 26 seats are excellent spots to sample one of the more than 50 whiskeys on the bar menu or settle in for a front-row seat in the open kitchen. (A small number of booths are spread around the rest of the room.) The menu has a strong French accent—foie gras torchon and oeufs en cocotte as starters, sole meunière as a main—and they don’t shy away from the butter and cream. The signature dish is the Brilhante steak, inspired by the classic Bife à Marrare that was served at Lisbon’s famous cafés in the 19th century.

Corrupio

When I settled in Lisbon, nearly seven years ago, one of the things I missed about New York was dining at the bar. Now, happily, the city is full of places where you can sit at the counter with a view of the chefs at work. One of the best new entries in this category is Corrupio, a welcoming spot from chef Daniel Ferreira (ex–Sublime Comporta, Plano and, most tellingly, O Frade) in Cais de Sodré. He’s put together a collective of chefs, including Rafael Pratas, Nélio Pedrosa and Lucas Azevedo, to work in the open kitchen that’s surrounded by the bar. (The name, Corrupio, refers to a state of constant movement.) The menu is concise: dishes like octopus salad with purple sweet potato puree, pig’s ear salad, black pork, codfish, and a particularly zesty, lemony coriander rice served with the catch of the day.

Davvero

The signature restaurant of Sublime Lisboa, Davvero—whose name means “the real one” in Italian—is of course set up to serve guests who don’t feel like venturing beyond the hotel. But it was designed to be a destination in its own right. Veneto-born chef Isaac Kumi (who opened Cipriani restaurants around the world) turns out a mod-Italian menu that seems effortless, from the snacks—perhaps whipped bacalhau on crispy black polenta—to the sumptuous tiramisu that rounds it out. In between, there are classic starters like crispy artichokes with anchovy sauce, burrata with pesto, and San Daniele DOP prosciutto. The pastas include favorites like cacio e pepe (pecorino and black pepper); fisherman’s spaghetti with mussels, clams, prawns, and sea bass; and beetroot gnocchi with gorgonzola sauce.

Gunpowder

Thanks to Portugal’s connections with Goa and its immigrant communities, Lisbon has its share of good Indian food. What it was missing was a high-end Indian restaurant. That changed with the arrival of Gunpowder in late 2022. The brand was founded in London in 2015 by Kolkata-born chef Harneet Baweja, and within two years received a Michelin Bib Gourmand designation. After two more successful openings in England, they expanded to the Portuguese capital. The move makes sense because Gunpowder’s focus is Indian coastal cuisine—with an “explosion of flavors”—drawing influences from Mumbai, Goa, and villages in between. It’s a perfect match for Portugal’s wealth of fish and seafood.

Las dos Manos

Star chef Kiko Martins’s latest project, Las Dos Manos, is a mashup of Mexican and Japanese cuisines. (On the wall of the strikingly designed dining room, a mural of Frida Kahlo is facing a stylized geisha.) Martins made a dozen trips to different regions of Mexico, studying culinary traditions and learning how to make everything from tortillas to aguachile. Then he set about having fun: the taco section of the menu includes one with black tiger prawn tempura, panko, creole salsa and passion fruit, and there’s a tostada topped with amberjack. avocado, ponzu and wasabi peas. Portuguese ingredients like scarlet prawns and acorn-fed black pork also make appearances.

Lota da Esquina

Prolific chef Vitor Sobral’s latest place on the corner spotlights fresh fish near the fishermen’s docks in Cascais. (The word lota means fish auction.) The space is enormous, with a focus on freshly caught, simply prepared fish and seafood downstairs, and a glamorous upstairs dining room, where charcoal-grilled meat and vegetables are served. As the night goes on, DJs or musicians arrive, and the dance floor comes to life.

Lota d’Avila

Lota d’Avila was already good when it opened late last year, and it got even better when chef Hugo Candeias (of Ofício fame) took over the kitchen a few weeks ago. The front room is centered on an illuminated stainless-steel bar where fish and seafood are displayed on ice. A corridor is kitted out like a yacht, and in the back are the main dining room and sheltered terrace that feel more like a beach club than a city-center restaurant. The barman makes some of the best Moscow mules in Lisbon, and the kitchen turns out a nice variety of raw and cooked seafood and fish dishes, including an avocado gazpacho with cured mackerel, and refined takes on Portuguese classics like stuffed brown crab that’s not too heavy on the mayonnaise and clams dressed in a smooth, harmonious bulhão pato sauce (lemon, garlic and coriander) rather than huge chunks of garlic.

Maré

The latest project from chef José Avillez—whose Belcanto was recently named number 25 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list—is a love letter to the ocean. Maré is set at the water’s edge in Guincho, with a simple ocean-inspired interior design, a shaded terrace and stunning views. The menu is straightforward but superbly executed, starting with a raw bar and some of Avillez’s signatures, like the raw tuna in seaweed cones. After that, there are some meat and vegetarian dishes, but the main event is the charcoal-grilled fresh fish and wonderfully tender octopus, squid and scarlet shrimp.

Sea Me Next Door

Sea Me was a pioneer for its approach to serving super-fresh seafood (often raw) in an upscale setting with seating at a counter in front of the chefs finishing the dishes. At its new, more casual spinoff up the street in Chiado, the emphasis is on small bites you can eat with your hands. Chef Elísio Bernardes maintains some of the Sea Me classics, such as the roasted sardine nigiri, beef sandwiches (famously “dessert” as typical seafood halls) and the octopus “hot dog.” There are also fresh oysters from all the major oyster-farming regions in Portugal (depending on the season), waffles with tuna, cod tongues with cilantro hummus and cuttlefish “bonbons.”

Vinte & Cinco

“Freedom kitchen” is a fitting concept for Vinte & Cinco, the new gastronomic endeavor from chefs Vitor Hugo and Theo Bruno. It’s on the first floor of the Associação de 25 Abril, an archive and museum dedicated to the 1974 revolution that ended a long dictatorship in Portugal. (The name is the number 25 in Portuguese.) Food-wise, the concept is freedom from the constraints of appetizer-main-dessert-style meals. The shareable plates feature some familiar Portuguese ingredients, but always with a twist. Marinated sardines come with lemongrass, “chopped gazpacho” and green olive tapenade. Octopus is caramelized in honey and served with chipotle, bean purée with lemon verbena and slaw in nuoc mam.