Come Dine With Me #1: Tapa Bucho, Lisbon, Portugal

Hi everyone!

The idea to start blogging came about while I was traveling in Portugal. Let me start off by saying that the food scene in Lisbon is incredible! Also, oddly enough it was the small and less expensive places that really blew me away. The more well-known and/or expensive restaurants had good food too, but the service was lacking in comparison.

Our absolute favorite restaurant in Lisbon was Tapa Bucho. It’s a small restaurant in the Bairro Alto district of Lisbon and it’s quite literally some of the best food I’ve ever had. My fiancé and I loved it so much that despite the fact that we should have been trying new places we came back here 3 different times during our stay in Lisbon. It’s that irresistible. Quick tip: get here before 8pm if you want to be seated immediately otherwise you will likely wait outside for an hour for anyone to leave.

Now let’s get to some of the food. :D

These are alheira croquettes. Alheira is a type of Portuguese sausage. The flavor is to die for. You can order these individually or as a plate of 5 like we did. The last time we went we ordered an extra croquette so we could each have 3. Splitting the last one wasn’t working for us. It is served on top of some spinach cooked with garlic and the sauce seen here. Bonus tip: we got this orange sauce with the French fries hull skins we ordered and they go great with these croquettes!

This is an order of the “Calamares” – aka fried calamari. Of course this is something you can get practically anywhere in America but I swear to you this is the best calamari I’ve ever had. Each piece is filled with juicy tender squid with a light crispy coating. The flavor combination of the sauce, herbs and lemon gives it a nice taste.

These are the French fries hull skin. They were described to us as French fries with some of the skin included. These were somehow very light and not greasy. Plus they came with the awesome orange sauce that I mentioned for the croquettes!!

This is the oxtail or “Ox Whip” on the menu. We chose to get this after checking out the restaurant on yelp with one of the reviewers writing GET THE OX TAIL! Thank you to that reviewer! This oxtail was incredible. The meat just melts in your mouth and I can’t stop saying how good the flavors are at this place! The sliced potatoes were fun to stack some oxtail on top and gorge myself on the delicious combination. This was well worth it. You can also alternatively order the oxtail as a sandwich.

Also this sangria I had was delicious!!!

We had a funny conundrum here over whether to order the same things each time or try some other dishes. I really want to try everything on this menu and I fully intend to go back here when we make our way back to Lisbon. But while we were there we had a hard time walking away from these main dishes. We did also try the Tapa Bucho salad – nice light salad, the prawns something something – shrimp in garlic sauce (but I forgot to take a picture!), and the Chocolat Delicious – also very good though a tad dry.

Beyond the incredible food, this place had a great atmosphere. It’s small (maybe 14-16 person seating) but the wait staff was super friendly and like most places in Lisbon they do speak English, which is always helpful. A super plus to me is that they remembered us each time we went back! That was something I loved about Lisbon. The people were so friendly and inviting and this place was no exception. Here is a picture of us with the staff after our last meal there:

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Tapa Bucho. I know I will be recommending them to absolutely everyone I know who is heading to Lisbon as I am recommending it to all of you!!