Portuguese House — Restaurant in District Municipality of Muskoka

Grilled calamari -

Tender, well seasoned, pineapple along with the bell pepper and onions offered a lovely sweetness that compliments the grilled char incredibly well.

Bread with their house made Angola piri piri sauce was fantastic - the sauce has a wonderful development of flavor and heat with saltiness that

Octopus dish -

Incredibly tender - grilled to perfection with a phenomenal balance of flavors and senses between salt, acid, fat and sweetness. If you are concerned about octopus tentacles, it’s worth the try. It’s high quality, fresh and tender.

Grilled sardines -

Perfectly grilled with a lovely balance to combat the natural saltiness that sardines have, the seasonal vegetables are seasoned well to balance the natural saltiness of the sardines.

Dessert: natas do ceu & crème caramel

The desserts were amazing and delicious, it was a wonderfully simple yet complex and complimentary to the delicious meal we had prior to. A must try at least once!

The natas do ceu had incredible layers that provided great texture and flavor in each bite. One that I’m excited to order again. It gave a lovely balance following a meal with acid and heat, calming the stomach and making it the perfect end to the night!

The crème caramel brought me back to my childhood where my Tia would baby sit me and feed this to me! What a delight to have this again! I’ve tried many in the past from other places and they just were not quite the same.

Overall-

The restaurant strives for quality and freshness in every dish, every dish we received was consistent. It was a wonderful balance drawing you back for more and convincing you to make plans to return before you even finish your meal.

The servers & owner are very friendly and kind, they were wonderful to speak with and incredibly personable. The atmosphere was fantastic - the updates allowed them to inject colors that encourage a light and vibrant atmosphere bringing culture to your experience.

We are incredibly excited for this new and unique restaurant and plan to visit as often...

We had heard good things about the Portuguese House (opened early summer), so took our daughter for dinner on her birthday.

Note: Be sure to make a reservation. They are busy!

Firstly, flavours we all good, and we'll be back. Service was timely, friendly, and fun. Atmosphere was good, with eclectic decor, we we loved.

However (and we do believe this to be a one off), some of our dishes had inconsistent cooks.

1. lamb (that night's special) had 5 ribs, each with a different cook (medium was ordered, but was a mix of med-rare to well). Delicious, but inconsistent.
2. seafood risotto was very tasty, and the first time my daughter had this dish. Flavors were good, and the seafood cook was good. However it was a bit soupy. (She still loved it)
3. I had the filled mignon, med-rare. I suspect that it was cooked at too low of a temperature based on the colour, and may have been warmed from a partial pre-cook because it was medium-well on the "top-half" and blue-side of rare on the "bottom half". Again, also delicious, and the sides were good.
4. Grilled calamari- the main body needed to be cooked (grilled) a tad longer as was still chewy, but (you guessed it) the flavours were great.

The other appys were good (had the sardine bruschetta and oysters).

Dessert was great (we each had something different and all liked what we got).

We also had cocktails. I enjoyed the "portuguese old-fashion", and everyone liked the sangrias.

All in all, we recommend as the flavours are definitely there, and the cook is likely a one off. The server asked if we wanted to recook, which we declined as it was still good (very tasty!).

We will be back, and DO recommend visiting (just remember to make a...

Portuguese House Restaurant has only been open for about 2 months according to the waiter. We have dined with the previous owners at this location and always enjoyed the ambiance of the old building and the beautiful exterior wrap around porch. We arrived without a reservation and there was only one table for two still available. We enjoyed a full bottle of Portuguese Vino Verde upon arrival, and I dined on the octopus followed up with a chocolate dessert. Both of the waite staff were very friendly and helpful, and the owner's son looked after the wine duties. When traveling in Portugal I have had about 50% success with Portuguese Vino Verde, and asked him about their offering. He assured me they had tasted some that were unsatisfactory and settled on this winery/bottle, so I ordered it. It was delicious and only about 6 months old. Although the meal took about 40 minutes to arrive, the octopus was perfectly cooked as were the vegetables and the presentation was lovely. The chocolate dessert was a marbleized affair and delicious. We spoke to the waiter after the meal and it turned out that the chef was the only member in the kitchen preparing the meals that evening, due to restaurant growing pains. With that knowledge, I couldn't believe my meal was so perfectly cooked. The restaurant was full on a Wednesday night. The desserts, he said, are prepared by the chef each day. Delicious. We will definitely be going back as regulars and I will have a hard time choosing from all the different meal choices that are available to me, as I cannot have many cream sauces and there were not many on the...