Today we had a quick (by Portuguese standards) lunch at a little neighbourhood restaurant 10 minutes from our house.
Restaurante Santo André is perched on a triangular intersection on a steep hill, and much of its square footage consists of a roofless patio. Tram 12 passes by on one side, and the hill is so steep that looking through the patio window we could see the roof of each tram rising into view before the rest of the vehicle became visible.
Santo André specializes in grilled fish, but they also offer many of what we’ve come to recognize as Portuguese restaurant standards: cheese and pork in numerous forms, bacalhau (salt cod) croquettes, various omelettes, steak with eggs on top, and most mains served with salad and basic potatoes. A bottle of vinho da casa white wine is 5.50 euros; a bottle of Sagres lager is 1.80 euros.
One waiter ran the entire busy lunch patio, speaking Portuguese to the regulars, perfect English to us, and decent-sounding French to the couple at the next table.
The delicious smell of the grilling fish is ubiquitous around Lisbon, with small portable grills appearing and disappearing without warning on sidewalk stoops, doorways, and restaurant windows.
At Santo André’s, the grill is more serious, built permanently into the outside corner wall of the patio. The woman running the grill spent a lot of time running back and forth with platters of fish and squid. The remote location of the grill makes sense, however, once you make the mistake of sitting too close to one — as we did — and find your clothes infused with the lingering odour of fishy smoke.
We tried the melão com presunto (melon with prosscuito) appetizer. It was a delicious salty/sweet combination with some of the best melon we’ve tasted in a long time.
Josie played it safe and ordered a rarely-seen vegetarian rice dish, but I decided to check one more item off my Lisbon must-do list and ordered the sardinhas grelhadas (grilled sardines). When they arrived, I was not disappointed by the presentation.
The fish was excellent, especially near the tail where the flesh was milder tasting and easier to remove from the bone. Towards the heads, though, where the internal organs were intact, things became more challenging. I enjoyed the meal as an experience but this likely won’t become one of my typical orders.