Three Days in,
Porto.
Porto, Portugal
port wine, azulejos, the Douro, riverside
Itinerary
3 chaptersDown through the Baixa to the Ribeira
Ribeira, Porto
Overview
This is the old city on foot, top to bottom. Coffee and torrada at Cafe Majestic on Rua Santa Catarina while the room is still quiet, then a short walk across to Livraria Lello for the red staircase before the line builds. Torre dos Clerigos comes next, and the climb up the bell tower hands you the whole city at once, rooftops sloping toward the Douro. Sao Bento is a working commuter station that happens to have about 20,000 painted tiles on its walls, so you can walk in, look up, and be back outside in twenty minutes. Lunch is small plates at Cantina 32 on Rua das Flores. The afternoon is loose on purpose, a couple of hours in the arcades and stairways of the Ribeira with time on a bench facing Gaia. Dinner is grilled fish at Adega Sao Nicolau, one street back from the quay.
Tips
- Buy the Livraria Lello ticket online for a morning slot. The price comes off any book you buy, so it stops being an entry fee if you were going to buy one anyway.
- Porto's sidewalks are polished granite and they turn slick in rain. Bring shoes with grip, and remember the walk back up from the river is genuinely steep.
- Cafe Majestic is busiest midmorning. At opening you get a table without waiting and the room mostly to yourself.
- The Clerigos ticket covers the church and the small museum, not just the tower. Give yourself more time than the climb needs.
- Reserve Adega Sao Nicolau a day or two out. It has about a dozen tables and they go early.
Getting Around
Walk all of it. Majestic to Lello is roughly ten minutes, Lello to Clerigos is two, and Clerigos down to Sao Bento is another five. The stretch to think about is the drop to the Ribeira and the climb back out, which is stairs and steep lanes rather than distance. If your legs are done after dinner, the Funicular dos Guindais runs up to Batalha from near the bridge, and taxis wait around Praca da Ribeira. Metro line D and the trains out of Sao Bento cover you if you are staying farther out.
Local Tips
A coffee at the counter costs less than the same coffee at a table in the old cafes, and at Majestic the gap is noticeable, so decide which one you are paying for. Ask for um cafe and you get an espresso. Ask for uma meia de leite if you want it with milk. Lunch runs later here than most visitors expect, and a dining room that looks dead at noon will be full by one thirty. The couvert that arrives at dinner without being ordered, bread and olives and cheese, is charged separately, and sending it back is completely normal.
- 0108:30 · 45m
Cafe Majestic
Go at opening and the carved wood, the mirrors and the stucco cherubs are all yours. Order a torrada with a galao, or the eggs if you want a real breakfast. Prices run high for Porto and you are partly paying for the room, which is fine as long as you know it walking in.About this place↗ Open in MapsA Belle Epoque cafe on Rua Santa Catarina, heavy on carved wood, mirrors and plasterwork, still working as a cafe rather than a museum piece.
HistoryIt opened in 1921, when Porto's writers and artists wanted a room like the ones they had seen in Paris, and the Art Nouveau interior has outlasted a century of the shopping street changing around it. The building has been restored more than once without losing its original layout.Why it's famousIt is the most photographed cafe in the city and one of very few Belle Epoque rooms in Portugal still open for ordinary daily business. Rua Santa Catarina outside keeps a constant stream of people going past the door.Did you knowThe cafe opened under the name Elite and was renamed Majestic within its first years, once the older name started to sound tied to a social class that was falling out of fashion in Portugal. - 0209:45 · 45m
Livraria Lello
Book a timed ticket online, ideally the first slot of the day. The staircase is the whole draw and it is also the bottleneck, so photograph it early and then spend your time looking up at the stained glass. The ticket price comes off any book, and there is a decent shelf of Portuguese authors in English.About this place↗ Open in MapsA bookshop from 1906 on Rua das Carmelitas, known for its crimson forked staircase, its carved neo-Gothic interior and a stained glass ceiling that drops daylight onto the shop floor.
HistoryThe Lello brothers had been selling books in Porto for years before they commissioned the building that opened in 1906. The design mixed Gothic revival detail with plasterwork carved and painted to read as wood, plus a glass roof to light a narrow, tall room.Why it's famousThe staircase and the ceiling made it one of the most photographed bookshops anywhere, and Porto's years as J.K. Rowling's home while she taught English in the early 1990s keep the queue outside long.Did you knowSo many people came to take pictures rather than buy anything that the shop began charging admission in 2015. Because the ticket is credited against a book, the fee works out as a book voucher for anyone who buys one. - 0310:45 · 40m
Torre dos Clerigos
The stairway is narrow and two-way near the top, so morning is easier than midafternoon. A little over 200 steps, no elevator. The same ticket opens the church and the small museum, worth ten minutes on the way out. Climb first, look around after.About this place↗ Open in MapsThe baroque bell tower of the Clerigos church, roughly 250 feet tall, attached to an oval church in the upper city and open to climb.
HistoryNicolau Nasoni, an Italian painter and architect who settled in Porto and shaped much of its baroque, designed the church first and the tower after it. The tower went up through the 1750s and early 1760s, paid for by the brotherhood of clergy that gave the whole complex its name.Why it's famousFor a long stretch of its life it was the tallest thing in Porto, and it still works as the city's compass point, visible from the river and from half the streets in the center. The climb gives you the historic core and the Douro in one turn.Did you knowNasoni asked to be buried in the church he designed, and he was, in the crypt below. No one knows exactly where in it he lies. - 0411:45 · 30m
Sao Bento Station
Ten minutes covers the atrium if you are pressed, but the panels reward standing still. Rush hour is a scrum, so morning is calmer. Put your back to the ticket windows and read the walls left to right, with the battle scenes up high. It is free, and the Douro Valley trains leave from these platforms.About this place↗ Open in MapsPorto's central train station, whose entrance hall is covered floor to ceiling in blue and white azulejo panels.
HistoryA convent stood on this site until the end of the 19th century. The station that replaced it opened in 1916, and the painter Jorge Colaco spent roughly a decade on the tile panels, finishing them around the time the building came into full use.Why it's famousAbout 20,000 tiles retell Portuguese history, from medieval battles to a royal wedding party arriving in Porto, alongside country scenes of harvests and markets. Very few working stations anywhere are also a picture gallery on this scale.Did you knowThe convent here burned badly in the 18th century and limped on for decades afterward. The state waited for its last remaining nun to die before clearing the site for the railway. - 0513:00 · 75m
Cantina 32
Get the cornbread with butter, the octopus, and one thing on the menu you do not recognize. These are small plates, so three or four between two people is about right. Book for weekend lunch. Rua das Flores outside is pedestrian only, which makes a window table worth asking for.About this place↗ Open in MapsA modern Portuguese small plates restaurant on Rua das Flores, built out of concrete, salvaged furniture and tin cans used as decoration.
HistoryIt opened during the revival of Rua das Flores, a street that spent decades half shuttered before restaurants and small shops moved back into the old buildings and brought the foot traffic with them.Why it's famousIt is one of the restaurants people name first when they talk about Porto's newer cooking, and the cornbread with butter has picked up a following of its own.Did you knowRua das Flores was laid out in the 1520s on orchard land taken from the bishop, and for centuries it was the goldsmiths' street. A few jewelers still trade there among the newer kitchens. - 0615:30 · 120m
Ribeira riverfront
Come down by the stairways rather than the main road, since the lanes between the cathedral and the quay are the best part of this. Late afternoon light hits the Gaia side. Skip the quayside places with photo menus, they are priced for the view. Two hours is enough to walk it and still sit for a while.About this place↗ Open in MapsThe old riverside quarter of Porto, an arcaded quay along the Douro backed by tall narrow houses and a tangle of stairways climbing to the cathedral.
HistoryThis was the working port of the city for centuries, where boats unloaded and merchants kept warehouses at the waterline and lived in the floors above. Sections of the medieval Fernandine wall still stand on the slope behind the quay.Why it's famousThe stacked facades above the water are the image most people carry of Porto, and the historic center, Ribeira included, went onto the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1996.Did you knowPortugal takes its name from this stretch of river. The Roman settlement of Portus Cale sat at the mouth of the Douro, and the name traveled from the port to the county to the country. - 0719:30 · 90m
Adega Sao Nicolau
Reserve, or turn up right when they open for dinner. Grilled fish of the day and the bacalhau are the safe orders. The few tables out on the lane beat the small room inside. Service is unhurried, so plan on a slow ninety minutes, and a bottle of Douro white does more for the fish than vinho verde.About this place↗ Open in MapsA small traditional restaurant on a lane just back from the Ribeira quay, cooking grilled fish and salt cod.
HistoryIt has been feeding people in the same narrow building on Rua de Sao Nicolau for decades, in a part of the Ribeira where the ground floors were once warehouses and workshops rather than dining rooms.Why it's famousIt answers the standing problem of the Ribeira, which is that the restaurants with the best views often have the worst kitchens. This is where locals send visitors instead.Did you knowBacalhau is salt cod, and Portugal fished it off Newfoundland for centuries before refrigeration made fresh fish easy. The country still imports most of its cod from Norway and Iceland.
Across the bridge to the Gaia cellars
Vila Nova de Gaia, Porto
Overview
Yesterday was bookshops and bell towers. Today is water and wine. Brunch at Zenith first, then the upper deck of Dom Luis I Bridge, which you share with the metro and with the view every Porto postcard is copying. A short climb from the far end brings you to Mosteiro da Serra do Pilar, where a round cloister sits behind a free terrace with the best angle on the bridge and the Ribeira. Lunch is at Mercado Beira-Rio, a food hall on the Gaia waterfront where you can eat at a window over the river. The rest of the afternoon belongs to port. A cellar tour at Graham's, Taylor's, or Calem walks you through the stacked oak casks, and a seated tasting afterward lets you put a white, a tawny, and a vintage next to each other. Dinner is at Barao Fladgate, Taylor's terrace restaurant, timed so the sun goes down behind old Porto while you are still at the table.
Tips
- Wear shoes with grip. The bridge deck and the cobbled lanes up to the monastery are steep in places, and the stone gets slippery in rain.
- Book the cellar tour in advance, especially at Graham's or Taylor's. August slots go by early afternoon.
- Reserve Barao Fladgate for close to sunset, and ask for terrace seating when you book rather than hoping for it at the door.
- Carry some cash or a card with no foreign transaction fee. A few lodge shops still prefer cash on small purchases.
- Pace the wine. You taste at the cellar and then sit down to a full flight after it, so eat properly at lunch.
Getting Around
Everything today is walkable, which is half the point. The long stretch is Zenith to the bridge, about 26 minutes, so build in a little slack if you are not in a hurry. After that each leg runs 2 to 14 minutes, mostly downhill toward the river once you leave the monastery. No metro or taxi needed unless the heat wins, and if it does, a cab from Mercado Beira-Rio back to your hotel is easy to find.
Local Tips
Almost all port ages across the river in Gaia rather than in Porto proper, so today's move south of the Douro takes you into the real port country. Tipping is not expected at a tasting, though rounding up a euro or two for a guide who earned it is welcome. The Serra do Pilar terrace is far quieter early than it gets by midafternoon, so if you want photographs without a crowd, do not linger over brunch. And the upper bridge deck belongs to the metro as much as to you, so stay behind the yellow line when a train comes through.
- 0109:00 · 60m
Zenith Brunch & Cocktails
No reservations, so give your name at the door and take a coffee outside while you wait. Weekend waits get long after 11. The eggs Benedict variations and the pancakes are what people come back for. Portions are generous, which matters, because lunch today is a long way off.About this place↗ Open in MapsA brunch and cocktail spot near Praca de Carlos Alberto, serving all-day breakfast plates alongside a bar list that runs into the evening.
HistoryIt started in Porto in the 2010s, when all-day brunch arrived in Portugal from abroad, and grew into a small group with branches in other Portuguese cities.Why it's famousIt is the address most often named when somebody in Porto says brunch, and the line on the sidewalk on a Sunday morning is the proof.Did you knowBrunch is a recent import here. The traditional Portuguese breakfast is tiny, an espresso taken standing at a counter with a pastry, and a full plate of eggs before noon still reads as a foreign habit to older locals. - 0210:15 · 45m
Dom Luis I Bridge
Take the upper deck. It runs at metro level, so keep to the walkway and stay clear of the yellow line when a train comes through. Fifteen minutes to cross if you do not stop, closer to forty five if you do. It gets windy midspan. Save the lower deck for the way back, when the climb is the last thing you want.About this place↗ Open in MapsA double-deck iron arch bridge over the Douro linking Porto with Vila Nova de Gaia, carrying a metro line and a walkway on top and road traffic below.
HistoryIt opened in 1886 in place of an aging suspension bridge on roughly the same line. The design came from Theophile Seyrig, and its single iron arch, around 560 feet across, was the longest of its type in the world when it was finished.Why it's famousThe two decks and the arch made it the emblem of Porto, and the upper walkway gives you the view of the Ribeira that ends up on most postcards.Did you knowGustave Eiffel gets credit for this bridge constantly and it is not his. His Porto bridge is the Maria Pia railway viaduct upstream, from 1877. Dom Luis I was designed by Seyrig, his former partner, working for a competing firm. - 0311:15 · 45m
Mosteiro da Serra do Pilar
The terrace out front is free and gives you the picture. Paying to go in gets you the round church and the circular cloister, which is genuinely unusual and takes twenty minutes. Check the interior hours before you climb, since it closes some days while the terrace stays open.About this place↗ Open in MapsA 16th and 17th century monastery on the Gaia clifftop, with a circular church and an equally round cloister, sitting above a terrace that looks straight across at Porto.
HistoryAugustinian monks built it high above the river in the 1500s and 1600s. That height made it a fortress as much as a monastery, and armies used it as one, including British and Portuguese troops during the Peninsular War.Why it's famousThe round cloister has almost no parallel in Portugal, and the terrace holds the best single view of the Dom Luis I bridge with the stacked houses of the Ribeira behind it. It was included in the 1996 UNESCO listing.Did you knowWellington's army crossed the Douro in 1809 to take Porto back from the French, and the heights around this monastery are where the British guns were placed to cover the crossing. - 0412:45 · 75m
Mercado Beira-Rio
Split up, order from different stalls, meet at a table. Oysters, francesinha and grilled sardines all live under one roof here. The upstairs windows over the river go first at lunch, so send someone ahead to claim one. Prices are fair for the location, and it is all indoors if the weather turns.About this place↗ Open in MapsAn indoor food hall on the Gaia riverfront, two floors of small stalls with shared seating and windows over the Douro.
HistoryIt opened in the 2010s in a converted riverside building on Avenida Diogo Leite, part of the wider reworking of the Gaia waterfront from wine-trade infrastructure into a place people spend an afternoon.Why it's famousIt gives you a river-view lunch on the Gaia bank without committing everyone to one kitchen, which is why groups who cannot agree end up here.Did you knowThe avenue outside is lined with port lodges, and the buildings behind the market are still working cellars. Some of the wine aging a hundred feet from your table is older than the market itself. - 0514:30 · 90m
Vila Nova de Gaia cellars
Book the slot ahead in summer. Graham's has the best view and the steepest walk up, Taylor's has the biggest lodge and a self-guided option, Calem is closest to the bridge and the busiest for exactly that reason. Tours run 45 to 60 minutes and finish with a tasting. Cellars stay cool, so bring a layer.About this place↗ Open in MapsThe lodges along the Gaia waterfront where port wine ages in wooden casks and vats, most of them open for guided tours that end in a tasting.
HistoryBritish and Portuguese merchant houses set up on this bank in the 18th century and shipped from the quays below. Wine came down from the Douro by rabelo boat until railways, and then trucks, took over the job.Why it's famousNearly every name you see on a bottle of port has a lodge in this small stretch of Gaia, and the cool damp air off the river is the reason they all ended up in the same few streets.Did you knowUntil 1986, port destined for export legally had to be aged and shipped from Gaia rather than from the Douro Valley where the grapes grow. The rule is long gone, and the lodges stayed anyway. - 0616:30 · 90m
Port tasting
Ask for a flight rather than ordering glasses one at a time. It costs less and shows you more. Taste white first, then tawny, then vintage. Spitting is normal and nobody will comment. A 10 year tawny is the best value bottle to carry home, and the lodge shops will ship.About this place↗ Open in MapsA seated comparison of port styles, usually a white, a tawny and a vintage or ruby poured side by side at a lodge or a wine bar in Gaia.
HistoryPort became a fortified wine through trade rather than design. Brandy was added to barrels heading for Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries, and stopping the fermentation early turned out to leave sugar in the wine and a style drinkers preferred.Why it's famousTawny and vintage start as the same fruit handled two different ways, one aged in wood until it goes amber and nutty, the other bottled young to spend decades changing in glass. Putting them next to each other is the fastest way to understand port.Did you knowVintage port is only declared in years each house judges good enough, which works out to roughly three times a decade, and every house decides for itself. Most port is a blend of several years instead. - 0720:00 · 120m
Barao Fladgate
Reserve, and say you want the terrace rather than just a table. Aim to sit down about an hour before sunset. The tasting menu is heavy after an afternoon of port, so the shorter menu is the better call. Dinner runs long here, which is the point, since the light on Porto is what you came for.About this place↗ Open in MapsThe restaurant at Taylor's port lodge in Gaia, with a garden terrace facing the old city across the river.
HistoryIt takes its name from a 19th century Fladgate, one of the partners whose surname is still on the company. Taylor's traces its own founding to 1692 and has kept its lodge on this hillside for generations.Why it's famousThe terrace holds one of the two or three best dinner views in Porto, straight across at the Ribeira with the bridge off to the right.Did you knowTaylor's is older than most of the buildings you are looking at from the terrace. The house predates the Dom Luis I bridge by almost two centuries.
Up the Douro to Pinhao
Douro Valley, Portugal
Overview
Last night ended on a terrace in Gaia with a glass of port and the whole city lit up across the water. Today swaps Porto's rooftops for the terraced hillsides those bottles come from. Pastries at Confeitaria do Bolhao early, then a long drive east, and after that the day slows right down. A stone lookout over the folded vineyards at Sao Leonardo de Galafura, a tasting and a walk in the vines at a quinta near Pinhao, lunch by the river, and an hour on the water in a rabelo, the wooden boat that used to run casks downstream. You are back in Porto by night for a francesinha, which is the right way to end three days here. Nothing needs packing for tomorrow, so let the afternoon on the river take as long as it takes.
Tips
- Comfortable shoes with some grip. The quinta paths above Pinhao are dirt and uneven, more so after rain.
- Take a light jacket for the boat. The river runs cooler than the road even when the valley is sitting in the mid 80s, which August often is.
- Book the estate tour and tasting at Pinhao ahead. Summer slots at the small quintas fill fast.
- Cafe Santiago moves fast and cash moves it faster. Have euros on you.
- If you want something for the road, the bola de berlim at Bolhao travels well. Buy two.
Getting Around
Porto to Sao Leonardo de Galafura is about 94 minutes of driving, so leave Bolhao by 8:15 at the latest to make the 10:30 slot without pushing it. From the lookout it is a short 28 minute hop down to the Pinhao vineyards. Once you are in Pinhao everything is walkable, 8 minutes or less between the quinta, lunch, and the pier. The drive home is the longest leg of the day at roughly 103 minutes, so pull away from the pier by 5:15 to have room before the 8:30 table.
Local Tips
Pinhao's train station is worth two minutes even if you are driving. The platform walls carry blue and white azulejo panels of the Douro harvest, some of the best tilework in the country outside Porto. On the boat, sit facing the terraced slopes rather than the open water, since the light comes off the north bank in the afternoon. At a quinta nobody expects you to finish every pour, and the spittoon is there for a reason. Back in Porto, a francesinha is meant to be messy, and they will bring more bread if you ask, which you should, because the sauce is the point.
- 0107:45 · 30m
Confeitaria do Bolhao
Order at the counter and eat standing, which is how it works here. A bola de berlim, a pastel de nata and a galao is the right order. Bread comes out through the morning and the line moves fast even when it looks bad. Cash is quickest. Buy a second pastry for the drive, you will want it.About this place↗ Open in MapsA bakery and pastry shop on Rua Formosa near the Bolhao market, working since 1896, with its old wood counters and tilework intact.
HistoryIt opened at the end of the 19th century to serve the traders and shoppers around Bolhao market, and it has been baking on the same street ever since, through a restoration that kept the original shopfront.Why it's famousIt is one of the oldest working bakeries in central Porto and the standard morning stop for anyone heading to or from the market across the road.Did you knowThe bola de berlim, a sugared fried doughnut split and filled with egg custard, arrived in Portugal with German-speaking refugees in the 1930s and 40s. It is now sold up and down the country's beaches all summer. - 0210:30 · 45m
Miradouro de Sao Leonardo de Galafura
Twenty minutes is enough unless you brought coffee with you. The chapel and the stone terrace are the whole site, there is no cafe and no shop. Morning light sits behind you, so shoot down the valley toward the river. The road up is narrow with pull-outs, so take it slowly and let the vans pass.About this place↗ Open in MapsA stone terrace and small chapel high above the Douro near Peso da Regua, about an hour and a half east of Porto, looking down on terraced vineyards and a long bend of the river.
HistoryThe terraces below were cut into schist hillsides by hand over centuries, inside a wine region the Portuguese crown mapped and regulated in 1756, one of the first anywhere to be formally demarcated. The lookout became known outside the region after the writer Miguel Torga described it in the mid 20th century.Why it's famousIt gives you the Douro at full scale, vineyard walls stepping down to the water in every direction, which is why it turns up in so many photographs of the region. UNESCO listed the Alto Douro wine country as World Heritage in 2001.Did you knowTorga's line about this view, that if God ever came down to look at the earth he would stop here first, is still quoted on plaques and in regional guidebooks. - 0312:00 · 90m
Pinhao vineyards
Book the estate tour ahead, since the smaller quintas run only one or two a day. Ask whether the walk goes up into the vines, because that is the part worth doing, and wear something you do not mind getting dusty. Tastings usually cover a tawny and a Douro red. Ninety minutes covers it comfortably.About this place↗ Open in MapsThe terraced wine estates, called quintas, on the slopes around Pinhao, a small town where the Pinhao river joins the Douro at the center of port country.
HistoryVines have been worked on these hillsides since Roman times, and the terraces were built by hand from loose schist over generations. The 1756 demarcation drew its boundaries around exactly this stretch of valley and set the rules for what could be sold as port.Why it's famousThe steepest and most valuable port vineyards are here, and the pattern of stone walls and vine rows folding around the river is the image the region is known by.Did you knowSome quintas still tread grapes by foot in shallow granite tanks called lagares, not as a performance for visitors, but because feet crush the fruit without breaking the seeds, which would push bitterness into the wine. - 0413:45 · 90m
Restaurante Veladouro, Pinhao
Family kitchen, so lunch takes ninety minutes and you should let it. Grilled fish of the day or the octopus rice are the orders to make. House Douro red by the jug is cheap and perfectly good. Book ahead during harvest, the room is small and quinta groups fill it out.About this place↗ Open in MapsA family-run restaurant near the quay in Pinhao, grilling fish and meat over coals, with river views from the terrace.
HistoryLike most of Pinhao's dining rooms it grew out of feeding the people who work the valley, quinta staff and river crews, long before visitors started coming up for the day.Why it's famousIt is the sit-down lunch most Douro day trips end at, mainly because the grill is honest and the terrace looks at the water.Did you knowPinhao fills and empties with the wine year. In September the town takes on harvest crews from all over the region, and by February you can have the quay to yourself. - 0515:45 · 75m
Douro river cruise
Buy at the pier that morning, departures run hourly through the afternoon. Sit on the shaded side heading out and swap sides coming back. An hour is the right length, longer gets repetitive. Take a layer, the river runs cooler than the road. Ask before boarding whether the boat pipes music, and pick another if it does.About this place↗ Open in MapsAn hour on the Douro from the Pinhao pier aboard a rabelo, the flat-bottomed wooden boat that once carried port casks downriver.
HistoryRabelos worked this river for centuries, running barrels through rapids to the Gaia lodges with a long steering oar at the stern. Dams built from the 1960s onward drowned the rapids and made the Douro calm and navigable, and trucks took over the wine.Why it's famousThe terraced slopes read completely differently from midriver than from the road above, and the boats themselves are the last working shape of the old wine trade.Did you knowThe surviving rabelos race once a year on the Douro at Porto, on 24 June for the Sao Joao festival, which is the only day most of them go anywhere under sail. - 0620:30 · 90m
Cafe Santiago
There are two Santiagos on the same street and either one works. No reservations, so expect fifteen or twenty minutes at 8:30. Order the francesinha with an egg on top and fries, and ask for extra sauce. It is bigger than it looks, so skip the starters. Cash is fastest on the way out.About this place↗ Open in MapsA Porto institution on Rua de Passos Manuel serving francesinha, the city's stacked sandwich of bread, steak and sausage under melted cheese and a hot beer and tomato sauce.
HistoryIt opened in 1959 and has been making essentially the same dish ever since, expanding along the street rather than reinventing the menu.Why it's famousIts sauce is the one most people in Porto argue for or against, and arguing about francesinha is a real local sport rather than a figure of speech.Did you knowThe francesinha was invented in Porto in the 1950s by Daniel da Silva, an emigrant who had eaten croque monsieur in France and rebuilt it for Portuguese appetites, with sausage, steak and a sauce he kept to himself.
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