Lisboa before the Port Harvest Tour (1) ?

[Eric Menchen]

I planning to join Roy's Port Harvest Tour this fall, the first edition September 20th-27th, 2015. While I might spend a small bit of time in Porto outside of those tour dates, I've been to Porto before. So I was instead thinking of spending some time in Lisbon, which I've only been in for a few hours at the airport. I'd like to take in some of the major sites and definitely would like to spend some evenings enjoying some Fado in small places.
1) Can you recommend restaurants and good places for Fado? Any other recommendations outside of the things I'll find listed in the major books and websites?
2) Any other tour participants want to meet up before the PHT?

[Bryan H.]

I don't know about places for Fado, but a few restaurants I like (these are both in the Chiado district of Lisbon, which is a cool area to stay and wander around in the evening):

Aqui Ha Peixe -- excellent fish restaurant. I've known the owner/chef, Miguel, and his wife Mafalda for a dozen years or so. We used to rent a house of theirs about an hour south of Lisbon and they used to run a beach restaurant of the same name down there. 3-4 years ago they moved the restaurant to Lisbon. We've always found meals there to be excellent. If you are going to go there, say hello for me. We are going to Portugal this summer, south of Lisbon again, but may have a meal there if we can fit it in with other stuff we want to do. I think it has gotten pretty popular--but I think still mostly with locals not as much tourists--so get a reservation.

Taberna da Rua das Flores--very small but excellent restaurant on Rua das Flores. We had a great meal there last summer on recommendation from a very good friend of ours that lives in Lisbon. This is definitely a locals place, given that it is quite small and on a pretty small side street.

[Eric Ifune]

We went to the Bernardo Museum of Contemporary Art in the Belem district. Great collection. The Belem district is pretty nice to hang out as is.
I spent an afternoon at Garrifeira Nacional. I planned on going to the Aquarium, but ended up drinking wine. They have a branch shop a few blocks from the main one where they have one of those nitrogen purged wine dispensers with a couple dozen wines to taste. Not cheap, but they had some interesting things like the 1912 Niepoort Colheita and a 1912 JM Fonseca Bastardinho. Also things like "The Douro Boys" blend and Barca Velha. The Bastardinho is a very rare wine which Domingos Franco, the vice president and winemaker, had only tasted once before. Roy and I didn't even know that Bastardo (or Bastardinho) was grown in Setubal, but apparently it was up until 20 or 30 years ago. A 30 year old Bastardinho is available and is quite nice. The Niepoort was fantastic!

[Marco D.]

I'll be there in August, which I assume will be too early.

I like Tasco do Chico in the Barrio Alto area for Fado. No need to buy an overpriced meal, they just have drinks and tapas. They only do Fado on Mon and Wed. Make reservations, as it fills up fast. Lots of character. I ended up sitting next an elderly blind fadista and we talked about what Lisbon was like in the old days (Salazar era). You can google it to get more info.

[Roy Hersh]

Definitely go to Taberna Rua das Flores for dinner. Also the dining room at Altis Belem, is memorable. Love that hotel.

[Eric Menchen]

Thanks for the info so far, and keep them coming. Tasco do Chico sounds good for the music, but I originally wasn't thinking of arriving by Wednesday. I may see if I can swing that

[Eric Menchen]

Thanks for the info so far, and keep them coming. Tasco do Chico sounds good for the music, but I originally wasn't thinking of arriving by Wednesday. I may see if I can swing that

Well, I'll be arriving on a Wednesday at 6 p.m., so Tasco do Chico might be back on the agenda.

Unrelated tangent: I searched for all these places on Google maps, which let me save them. Now I can load up the map on my phone or tablet and they are all marked. Google had a "Send to device ... -> Motorola XT1060" option, but I didn't need to do that. Saved once and Google knows all.

[Bryan H.]

Yeah, we've used Google Maps or Waze very successfully there. They pretty much get it right. But you do have to be careful, as sometimes the time it takes the english voice to torture out the "take a right on Rua Julio Cesar Machado" (or some other lengthy street name, of which there are many) instruction, you've already passed the turn...