The Best Restaurants for a Date Night in Lisbon

The most delicious sushi with a Portuguese twist. Very interesting flavours.The presentation is incredible, in this tiny restaurant where everything is so good you will want to come back.

O Frade is a tiny, intimate restaurant with a U-shaped counter bar serving traditional comfort food from the Alentejo region with a modern twist. The restaurant opened just before the pandemic broke out by two cousins, and they achieved Bib Gourmand status shortly thereafter. The food is simple and hearty, and the passion shines through in each plate. A perfect spot for a meal with friends, or a solo dinner.

How to use 100% Portuguese products wisely.* Michelin Star Restaurant located in a beautiful part of Lisbon, the decor is beautiful and the food likewise, offers a tasting menu for a fair price and you have close experiences with the kitchen team and everything seems to be perfect synchronised.They have a mindset of using local, Portuguese products, specially from small producers.Interesting wine menu and selection.

Marlene Vieira is the only Portuguese woman chef competing for the podium at fine dining experiences in Portugal. It can be troublesome to be a strong woman in a conservative industry like the food one, especially in an old-fashioned and misogynist country such as Portugal. However, as the Portuguese say, "a woman from the north" is born with extra strength and the ability to fight. Marlene Vieira has that muscle, and earlier this year opened a gastronomic restaurant aiming for a Michelin Star. Marlene, – the restaurant's name is exactly like this, with a coma – is an elegant stage for this chef's work. At the centre of the restaurant, the ethereal kitchen illuminates like a holy altar, leaving the rest of the space in half-light. One can choose from two different tasting menus representing the story of her life and her experiences, but above all, challenging the status quo that other fine dining restaurants have been following. She does not approach produce and recipes with the well-behaved vibe most haute cuisine restaurants in Portugal do. Crawling between dishes, one can see she is knowledgeable, down-to-earth, ballsy, and above all things, connected to her roots. At the beginning of her path in this new project, I tasted a Goose Barnacles Tart with Codium and Planetree, a very polished snack. A comforting Spring dish made with Broad Beans, Morilles, and Sheep Butter, and a disruptive meat dish: Fatty Milky Lamb cooked on Live Coal and served with its Sweetbreads, Roasted Onions Purée, and Pickled Chard. Marlene Vieira is a pillar and an example for young women cooks out there, but one can not ignore she is not only standing next to the big boys but has overcome most of them.

Michelin-rated 100% vegetarian tasting menu in the heart of Lisbon.Encanto opened and won a Michelin star after only a few months, the expansive menu a drilled-in study of the pulled, picked, plucked and foraged: legumes, leaves, seeds, algae, mushrooms, flowers, fruits, nuts, eggs, cheeses and so on and so on, “driving to contribute to a more sustainable world,” says chef José Avillez. Sourcing ingredients from small or local Portuguese farmers, Encanto puts the culinary spotlight on seasonal produce from a drive to contribute to a more sustainable world. Some dish examples include: confit egg yolk, Jerusalem artichoke, bean broth, truffle cabbage, onion corn kernels, Azorean Island cheese.

Best Couple/Team in town.Located in Lisbon, one of the best meals I've ever had, a project of a young couple who both serve and cook in front of you, with a communal table where you can meet new people in that evening. Amazing welcoming and amazing atmosphere, needless to say, how good the food was. In terms of the wine pairing, it was fun that they serve wines that they tried during past experiences, in their personal or professional lives.A must in Lisbon.Price quality to good to be true.

A well-kept secret in central Lisbon, this restaurant would be the perfect setting for a Agatha Christie novelA well-kept secret in a more residential area of central Lisbon, this restaurant only opens for dinner and closes way after midnight. It's the perfect setting for an Agatha Christie book, filled with red velvet and dark wood booths, with dim lights and delicious Portuguese food. The steak “à Café do Paço” is the must-have, always preceded by a freshly fried meat croquette. A truly special place.

Modern, fashion forward decor with inventive food, although there are hits and misses I have to give kudos to this place because I’ve seen more females employed here in FOH than any restaurants we’ve been all over Portugal. The vibe is fashionable & clean modern, both in decors and food presentation. It was diffrent than most other restaurants in Portugal that are all about seafood. Just don’t order the seaweed lobster risotto. Where’s the lobster? You practically have to get a magnifying glass out to find it. But still worth a trip if you’re looking for something nice but diffrent than most other restaurants in Portugal.

Amazing carvejaria!I have visited Ramiro twice and it is one of my favourite restaurants in Lisbon. The ingredients are excellent. Must visit when in Lisbon!

Starred creative cooking with the best Portuguese produce, by chef José Avillez. There’s quite a few Michelin Star restaurants to choose from in Lisbon, if you’re looking for that kind of fine dining experience (thirteen restaurants, fifteen stars in total). Belcanto was the first to get two stars in the capital (and the only Portuguese restaurant on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list), and chef José Avillez continues to push the high standards with a cuisine that creatively expresses some of our best ingredients. From the “Scarlet shrimp curry, cauliflower and green apple” to the “Suckling pig with orange peel purée and lettuce” or the “Smoked and cured horse mackerel, Algarve carrot and emulsion”.If you go for lunch, the light comes in through the windows adding even more charm to the beautiful dining room.

Open horizonsI totally recommend this place to “omnivores”, amazing place, nice service and good wine menu.Makes you think how we can change in a near future to a different diet.

A nice and simple taberna, by Chef André Magalhães, super casual, with really incredible food.One of my favourite places in Lisbon. Taberna da Rua das Flores is a nice and simple taberna, owned by Chef André Magalhães. It’s super casual, with really incredible food and offers a nice, typical Lisboan experience. They do lunch too but I would go at night. No bookings - you just sign up at the door and go for a walk or a drink while waiting. The area is cool as well so worth walking down the street and see some other places and bars.

ALMA,Our turn to enter the world of chef Henrique Sá Pessoa in his two star Michelin restaurant Alma!What I loved about this place is that – despite its star status – the warm and traditional Portuguese feel has not been lost! Warm wooden tones, walls filled with bottles of wine and a fantastic team that created the best of hospitality…A series of snacks and amuses led the way of what would be an extraordinary evening starting with a tempura strip of red bell pepper coated in burnt leek powder and a red bell pepper dip, inspired by the traditional tempura green bean dish, peixinhos da horta! A beautiful dashi broth with cured fish and a fresh acidic ‘gazpacho’ rounded off these fine starters.One of the best dishes was soft and sweet glazed baby carrots served with sharp goat cheese, apricot, dried fruit, bulgar rice and cumin oil. The fact they serve a ‘simple’ dish in a star-studded restaurant like this explains the feeling I had with this restaurant! Elevating classic dishes to a true masterpiece of taste…Another example was the foie gras course which was an incredibly generous portion with apple, granola, coffee and beetroot. This was another unique mix of flavors and unlike any foie gras dish, I’ve been served before. A classic reinvented and one of the best foie dishes I have ever tasted… A perfect creation of Cod and lamb followed before another signature dish arrived, the suckling pig…. The way this suckling pig was created, really soft with an intense black pepper jus and the crispy crust was a showcase of artisanship in its purest form. A new dessert of sea flavors and citrus 2.0 was one of the best desserts I have ever had. A dessert that tastes of fresh nuances of the sea paired with the acidity of citrus was very atypical but totally amazing. All this showcases that Henrique Sá Pessoa is a man of great culinary talent. I love the way he takes traditional dishes and invents something really unique around them! The team conducts a close and personal approach which enhances the experience at Alma.

The Taberna is a very nice place to find local delicious food Traditional Portuguese cuisine with various proposals (fish, snacks, salads, grilled dishes) presented in the form of small dishes to share, all very tasty, delicious and satisfying.