This restaurant surprised and delighted us. We went in cranky after a long day. The hotel hadn’t been open long, the whole team seemed ambitious and are trying to create something unique. We’d booked for 7pm but the restaurant didn’t open until 7:30, the menu was confusing and we were tired. Happily we were soon turned around with patience and good service. The restaurant is bright and fun and the food was delicious.

Nothing is what it reads like on the menu but we were delighted with how it turned out.

We spent 4 nights in Porto before boarding the Emerald Radiance for a 7 night cruise on the Douro river. Every meal was good value and a couple were outstanding. I’ll save the best for my next post.

For our first night we wanted a restaurant within an easy walk of our hotel, the Editory Boulevard Aliados.

Quattro, an Italian restaurant had good reviews and didn’t disappoint.

A few cocktails, some breadsticks, olives and marinara before very good pasta and pizza.

The restaurant was Italian but the wine was Portuguese, from Alentejano and it was excellent. So good it called for a second bottle

We were winging it for our 2nd night but wanted Portuguese and I was ready for some bacalao.

We found Vaccarum. Known for Francesinhas, Porto’s famous hot meat and tomato gravy sandwich. One of our group tried and loved it. The rest don’t eat much meat and I just wanted cod. They had good cod fritters but my cornmeal crusted cod with potatoes and spinach was the winner.

Reservations were in place for the next night at Elebe Centro. There are several Elebe locations, Centro was walking distance up a steep hill in a lively neighborhood.

The food was good but the wine experience was the big hit.

We had a great start to our trip and a long day tour to Braga and Guimaraes ahead thé next day so wound our way back down to our hotel passing this lively square on the way.