Taberna Clandestina Cascais — Restaurant in Cascais

My husband and I have been living in Cascais for nearly two years and had never been to Taberna Clandestina until this month .... wow what can I say other than we will definitely be going back, it was such an enjoyable evening :) We booked a table as had read online that the place is small and does get busy, when we arrived our table was free and had a lovely little hand written welcome note. Not long after arriving the place just seemed to fill up (very popular place), people were coming in from the street looking for a table, they have a bar area where you can have a drink whilst a table comes free. We ordered our drinks and food, the waiting staff were very friendly and helpful, the food was amazing and the house wine was really nice (we always go with the house wine in Portugal as unlike other Countries you never get a bad one). After our delicious food we sat relaxing finishing our wine when a couple came in, they were waiting for their table to come free (not ours), as we had finished eating we decided to take our drinks to the bar so the couple could have our table, we were told this was not necessary but we said we were happy to move, the lovely couple sent us over a drink to say thank you and the staff were very appreciative too. We then got chatting to the two guys behind the bar and decided to try a couple of their cocktails, very nice. The atmosphere was so friendly and relaxing we could have stayed all night. This place is a MUST if you are in Cascais, we can't wait to go back and I can't wait for our friends to visit from the UK as we now have a new place to take them, so that means we will have many visits this year. I have a thing about toilets in restaurants, if they are not clean I don't tend to go back, it is a unisex toilet and clean and fun, so another tick in the box. Thanks to Victor, Filipe, Morci, Fribi, Camila and the two Franchescos for a lovely evening. Sorry if I didn't get all your...

Visited a few weeks back, been meaning to leave a review as I feel like what we experienced should not go under the radar. Cocktails were okay, however food was by far the worst any of us had had in a long time. We ordered the cod and the seafood platter, cod tasted exactly like the cheapest frozen one from tesco - chewy, bland and unseasoned, something I'd immediately throw away had it not been a restaurant. Don't get me started on the greens which were impossible to chew so after 2 minutes of consistent attempts I had to spit them out in a napkin, which was quite an awkward moment that I am glad no one saw. The only actual fish in the fish platter consisted of exactly 3 little sardines straight out of a tin, I would know that flavour anywhere. The only other things on this "fish" plate were a few kinds of some sort of a paste, no one explained what they were, but they tasted even more bland than the cod in the other dish. The bread was hard and stale, and far too little. Finally, we had the pleasure of paying around 35 eueo for these delicacies, and left feeling hungry and dissatisfied. Worst money spent on our holiday, but hey at least we got to have a laugh afterwards and during, because there was nothing else we could do. Interestingly, I saw someone compliment on these dishes in the reviews - this for me raises quite a few questions regarding the validity of these reviews, but hey maybe it's a matter of preference - but personally I just cannot imagine something as abstract as anyone considering the dish or the service as "excellent". I have no doubt the owners of the establishment will reply with a snarky defensive comment like they have done with the majority of the negative reviews and I do apologize if I have offenfed anyone, but the point of google reviews is to give everyone the opportunity to voice their honest opinions. Thank you...

After reading the number of positive reviews of this restaurant I was so disappointed. I can only assume a high number of reviews must be fake as its impossible that so many could have rated this tourist trap so highly.

They market themselves, and name their signature dish, around sharing platters. The problem is that the so called sharing platter is not much bigger than a postage stamp. The pictures online must be really zoomed in as the sharing board is tiny and can barely feed one person. The signature 'Taberna' sharing platter is supposed to come with burrata. Hence we were expecting a whole burrata. But no, you get one small piece of burrata which is barely one mouthful. Oh and bread to eat the platter with. Oh not you don't get that, you have to pay extra for 4 pieces of bread barely the size of a business card.

The sea food mix was the biggest joke of all. From the description you expect a nice plate of fried seafood, enough for the a few people. It was literally one shrimp, a couple of pieces of tiny calamari (wedding ring size), and a couple of miserable tiny sardines. In fact the small pots of dipping sauce contributed more volume that the seafood itself.

The goats cheese salad was the next insult. Normally you expect a couple of generous slices of goats cheese with a salad. This salad had what I can only describe as a few flakes of cheese.

Lastly the service. We arrived at 1pm, we asked all food we ordered to be bought once ready. We received 2 of our dishes in 30mins, once finished we then had to wait over an hour for the other three dishes to arrive by which time we were thoroughly fed up.

We left hungry and feeling totally ripped off.

Avoid this cynical tourist cash grab. There are so many other better places in the area where your experience will actually match the publicity and...