Lisbon food tours: how to choose a good one

Pick a small-group walking food tour of three to four hours in the old neighbourhoods, and take it on your first or second day. You eat enough for a full meal, learn what to order for the rest of the trip, and get a list of places from someone who lives here.

Option	Usual length	Best for
Small-group walking food tour	3 to 4 hours	First-time visitors, early in the trip	Check prices on GetYourGuide
Evening food and wine tour	3 to 4 hours	Couples, and anyone curious about Portuguese wine	Check prices on Viator
Pastel de nata baking class	About 2 hours	Families and rainy afternoons	Check prices on GetYourGuide
Dinner with live fado	2 to 3 hours	One evening of the trip, not every evening	Check prices on GetYourGuide

What you will actually eat

Stops vary by guide, but a good tour covers most of this list:

Petiscos: small plates meant for sharing, Portugal’s answer to tapas.
Bacalhau: salt cod, usually as pastéis de bacalhau (fritters) or à Brás, with egg and matchstick potatoes.
Bifana: a thin pork steak in a bread roll, eaten standing at a counter.
Cured ham and sheep’s cheese, often with a glass of vinho verde or a red from the Alentejo.
Conservas: tinned sardines, mackerel or tuna. In Portugal this is a delicacy, not a compromise.
Ginjinha: sour-cherry liqueur, served in a shot glass or a chocolate cup.
Pastel de nata: the custard tart, eaten warm with cinnamon.

Come hungry and skip lunch. Tours describe themselves as tastings, but the total is a meal.

Where the good tours go

Baixa and Mouraria tours mix century-old shops with the city’s most multicultural streets. Alfama tours are the most atmospheric and the steepest. Campo de Ourique, a residential neighbourhood with a renovated market, is where to go if you want to eat among locals, not other tour groups.

How to tell a good tour from a mediocre one

Group size. Twelve is a sensible ceiling. Beyond that you spend the tour waiting outside small shops.
Number of stops and what is served. The listing should name the foods. “Various tastings” is a bad sign.
Drinks included. Check how many, and whether there are non-alcoholic options.
Dietary needs. Portuguese cooking leans on pork, cod and shellfish. Vegetarians can usually be accommodated if you say so when booking. Vegans and coeliacs should ask before paying, because some stops have no real alternative.
The route. If walking uphill is a problem, ask. Alfama is all stairs.

The alternatives

Evening food and wine tours swap some food stops for proper tastings. They are a good choice if wine is the main interest, since Portuguese wines are rarely exported in any variety and are hard to learn about at home.

Pastel de nata classes take about two hours and send you home with a recipe that works. Children enjoy them, and they are one of the best options for a rainy afternoon.

Dinner with fado is a show with a meal, and should be judged that way: you are paying for the music, and the food is usually decent, not memorable. Go once, in Alfama or Mouraria, and choose a small house over a large one.

When to book

Take the tour early in your trip, so the guide’s recommendations are useful for the days that follow. Morning and lunchtime tours visit shops and markets while they are busiest. Many markets and traditional shops close on Sundays, so tours that day may follow a reduced route.

Fitting it in

A food tour fits naturally into day one of our 3-day itinerary, in place of the afternoon walk. For everything else worth doing, see the best things to do in Lisbon.