Escondidinho — Restaurant in Barcelos

What an excellent little place that is swamped at lunch time by locals. I had to wait in line about 15 minutes for one seat at the counter inside. The food is GREAT, the servers are friendly and the prices are very-very reasonable.

I had a soup, “panados” (essentially breaded, fried thin beef filets — think “chicken-fried steak” in America) with fries & rice, and a full glass of vinho verde for 6.20€.

This is very close to “fast food” — and they do offer the typical Portuguese fast-food sandwiches (prego em pão, etc.), but like the panados, there were 4-5 other specials (grilled turkey fillets, fish, steak, etc.). Food is served up, fresh and hot, in under 5 minutes and the turnover rate, for Portugal, is remarkably high.

At one point a pair of adjoining seats opened up at the counter (balcão) and the man behind the counter shouted out to the line of people waiting to get in for lunch that they were available, but not to dawdle if you’re trying to decide between counter seats and waiting for a table, because “they’ll be gone in 30 seconds”. They were gone in about 10.

I loved everything about this place! [CASH ONLY - no...

It's worth coming here just to see the head waiter in action. He is a complete legend. I've never seen someone turn around tables so quickly and efficiently. The food here is not outstanding but given that some main courses are only €3-3.5 and make a nice quick hot lunch, it deserves 5* because that is what tourists and busy local people want. Don't come here if you want a slow refined lunch but please come here if you want to eat a tasty quick lunch while...

We visited the restaurant in 2023 during our short visit to Barcelos. We saw many locals here, so we decided to have lunch here. We need to wait until the table is free. They sell economic food with a great portion. The taste is ok. The service is quite fast. We recommend the restaurant to eat traditional Portuguese food while...