Restaurante Dom Espeto — Restaurant in Coimbra

Visiting from Australia and went here for dinner as a recommendation from our tour guide. The service was attentive and staff were helpful. We started with a local sausage and pineapple which was good. However from there we were disappointed by the highly recommended octopus and goat specials. The octopus was well cooked but lacklustre. The goat too was reasonably well cooked, slightly over but the dominant flavour profile was salt. The saltiness overpowered everything. Even when eating it with the cabbage and potatoes. Restaurant was pretty empty at 830pm without many locals eating which should have been a warming sign. They allow you to pay by card if eating mains/rations. The wines were OK and needed to cleanse the palate from all the salt. The sangria was nice...

It's easy to tell when a restaurant is good because it will be busy. When we arrived Dom Espeto was busy and we were the lucky ones who got the last table. My wife and I ordered the squid as well as the roasted goat marinated in red wine (a regional speciality). The squid was good but the goat was excellent. The staff were attentive and friendly and spoke fluent English. After we had ordered we saw several tables had skewers (quite spectacular, hung from a stand on the table) and they looked great too. We would gladly return and were glad we had made the effort to walk here on a cool, rainy...

Found this hidden gem on our way back to our Airbnb. The food was delicious and portions were huge. We were served by a friendly waiter and waitress and they both speak English. The price was cheaper than other restaurants, fish dishes were below 13E. We ordered grilled salmon, which we did not find in other restaurants and it was great. The lamb in red wine was recommended in other google reviews and it did not disappoint. Lastly, the grilled black pork belly was fantastic too. Will definitely come back...