Portugal: Three Stops. Five Days.

The Beach Club at the Sublime Comporta hotel.

A quick tour of Portugal – through Lisbon, Porto and Comporta.

Having arrived in darkness, well after midnight, on the last flight from London, and having slept fitfully on a very local dinner of custard tarts and a glass of port, I awoke to my wife, Lisa, calling insistently from our balcony. “Jake, you have to come and look at this.” So I did, and the view of Lisbon spread out below in the early morning sun was splendid. But clearly it wasn’t the rolling hills and the clusters of terracotta roofs that had moved her. It was the vast park in the foreground, wherein everything was lilac. The jacaranda trees brought back from Brazil in the early 19th century welcomed June in the splendour of their full bloom.

This was our first trip to Portugal and the purpose was multifold. For starters, with tourism to Portugal soaring (26.5 million visitors in 2023 — good for €30 billion in revenue), we wanted to see what all the fuss was about. More particularly, I was keen to know if I could eat as well in Lisbon as I did at Lisboeta on Charlotte Street, one of London’s best restaurants, from chef Nuno Mendes. And as a long-standing, enthusiastic port drinker, raised to believe that you can’t have a real Christmas without Stilton and port, I’d long wanted to make a pilgrimage to Porto. Then we thought we’d cap it all off with a spot of R&R at the beach resort of Comporta.

It all got off to an auspicious start, with a brilliant lunch at José Avillez’s Belcanto — a consistent top 50 finisher on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. That evening, Cura at the Four Seasons did the implausible and followed that star turn with an equally impressive dinner (see “Where to dine” for accounts of both). There was also fantastic seafood at Cervejaria Ramiro. Lisbon’s hilly, cobblestone streets are good for walking some of that off; to finish the job I recommend heading for the Marina Alcântara, and then spending a few hours visiting the key local sites along the waterfront: the Maat Museum, Torre de Belém, Mosteiro dos Jerónimos and Padrão dos Descobrimentos. In Porto, we had long and supremely enjoyable port tastings at Taylor’s and Fonseca, and would have been very happy to lose more time in The World of Wine. Then, there was the crowning experience of our stay at Sublime in Comporta.

But be warned. If you’re planning on going to Portugal looking for a deal, you’ve missed the boat. It’s a whole lot more crowded than the place you may have heard about four or five years ago. And be sure to plan your meals carefully (in between the standouts listed here, many were disappointing, sometimes acutely so).

↗ Lisbon

Where to Dine

Belcanto
In the charming café-and-theatre district of Chiado, you will find Lisbon’s first two-Michelin-starred restaurant, Belcanto. The room is pleasant (vaulted ceilings, natural light, understated accents) and the service slick. But what sets it all apart is the exceptional quality of the cooking, which recasts traditional Portuguese flavour combinations in imaginative new ways, often riffing playfully on chef José Avillez’s childhood memories. “The garden of the goose that laid the golden eggs” meant a luscious, slow-cooked and jiggly egg topped with gold leaf and enhanced with wild mushrooms and truffle. Impeccably cooked blue lobster arrived engulfed in tomato “snow” — white foam cast from tomato water. Caviar-topped sea bass in seaweed broth offered an immersive taste of the sea. An exquisite meal.

Cura
We arrived for dinner still sated from lunch. But no sooner did we settle in at our marble-topped table in this handsome room than our enthusiasm for another big meal was rekindled, stoked by a procession of imaginative, brightly flavoured, richly textured small plates. Smoked eel with parsnip cream, a plump oyster with cucumber, white-strawberry-and-tomato water, red mullet with mullet dashi, Savoy cabbage and mint oil with a little kale — a perfect study of brassica vegetables in springtime. Then, squid “noodles” tossed with sesame butter and caviar, turbot with gooseneck barnacles and asparagus, and Iberian pork with plum and almonds followed. The pineapple sourdough ice cream clinched it. This was cooking of a very high order.

Cervejaria Ramiro
They don’t serve fish or vegetables. The wine list is a scant handful of bottles. And so far as we could discern, the only non-crustacean items on the menu were the Portuguese essentials of pata negra ham (delicious) and over-buttered pasty white bread (not). But if you fancy seafood, do not hesitate for a second; make a beeline for Ramiro and join the queue. From spider crab to gambas, carabineiros and clams and langosta, this place has the best and freshest and prepares it all with appropriate simplicity.

For Afternoon Drinks

There seem to be small, crowded and convivial wine bars at every turn in Lisbon — especially in the district of Bairro Alto. If you want to get away from the crowds there, head for the terrace at Bahr, on the fifth floor of the Bairro Alto Hotel, which, with its lovely view of the River Tagus, is a preferred spot for watching the sunset. If you prefer an indoor setting, head for the stunning bar at Rocco in The Ivens, just around the corner.

Where to Stay

Four Seasons Hotel Ritz Lisbon
In the 1950s, preoccupied with perceptions of grandeur, as fascist dictators tended to be, António Salazar made it a personal project to correct Lisbon’s inadequacies in the realm of large luxurious first-class hotels. The eventual result was this masterpiece, which opened as a Ritz in 1959 and has been, since 1997, managed by Four Seasons. Its common areas are dramatically large and grand, the furnishings and art stunning. Each of the stylishly appointed 290 rooms has a proper balcony that overlooks the beautiful Eduardo VII Park and the rambling hills of the city beyond. And while I’ve never been a fan of breakfast buffets, I am still thinking wistfully about the one at this hotel, months on. This is unequivocally the place to stay.

The patio at Varanda, Four Seasons Ritz, Lisbon.

Jerónimos Monastery

Squid with hazelnut, seaweed butter and caviar at Cura.

Sea bass, dashi and seaweed at Belcanto.

↗ Porto

Where to Stay

The Yeatman
If tasting port is your main mission in Porto — as it logically should be — you’ll want to make base camp here, amidst the port lodges in the port mecca of Vila Nova de Gaia. The rooms are comfortable, and while it’s a 20-minute cab ride to downtown Porto, you do have the convenience of the two-Michelin-star restaurant on-site. Even more enjoyable is the stunning view from the patio overlooking the picturesque Douro and old Porto.

What to Do

World of Wine
Wow, what a concept — a wine centre with seven museums, shops, restaurants, bars and a wine school. After two delightful afternoons whiled away at the neighbouring port lodges of Taylor’s and Fonseca, sampling their full Canadian portfolios (and more), this complex proved to be the perfect complement for rounding out the wine experience. And on this front, The Art of Drinking Museum, with its smart and sometimes interactive exhibits of some 2,500 drinking vessels spanning 9,000 years, absolutely merits a visit. From there, take the immersive experience one step further and pop over to The Wine School for a tutored tasting.

Porto at night, from the patio at The Yeatman.

Yeatman Gastronomic Restaurant

The original hollow leg, an ancient vessel in The Art of Drinking Museum.

↗ Comporta

Where to Stay

Sublime
Naming your hotel Sublime was a bold move. But with its private cabins set amidst sand dunes and cork trees, and the elegant rustic décor, this spectacular retreat fulfills its promise. Consider, for example, lunch at the Beach Club, on a magnificent expanse of white sand on a tranquil stretch of the Atlantic — pata negra, steamed clams and charcoal-grilled line-caught turbot. Next, a busy afternoon of reading and drinking by the pool on handsome plush loungers. Then, dinner at The Food Circle, perched on a stool at a small bar surrounding the open fire, where the chef prepares your meal, mostly pristine local seafood and the hotel’s own vegetables grown on-site. From our starter of an oyster with apple and wild lily to the red shrimp with gazpacho and the red-mullet escabeche, the food was exquisite and the experience an intimate delight. The only part of our stay that was not sublime was our departure.