Mestrias Tasca Nova — Restaurant in Lisbon

Yeah, I’m sorry I have to be brutally honest here. This was the most unpleasant culinary experience we’ve had in the last decade. This service at this place was the absolute pits.

As in any restaurant the service staff makes or breaks the experience. And at Mestrias the wait staff absolutely trashed it.

It started with small things like the initial drinks not coming for 30 mins, and the bread and olives ordered with them never arriving. The wait staff wouldn’t actually proactively wait on our table during the evening: i.e. check drinks, take orders or clear dishes away. We had to actively intercept them while they were attentively serving their Portuguese guests to just get the basic things, like taking our orders (starters, mains , desert…) bringing us some drinks, clearing the dishes away etc. I’ve literally had 100x more attentive service at Burger King.

There were a couple of particular ‚highlights’.. One was not having the dirty dishes from the different courses (like the starters) cleared away and the waiter literally trying to just plonk the next course down on top as he flew past. Also fresh plates to eat from for the different courses? Forget it! The dirty plates from the starters had to be used also for the main. The table was a mess. Absolutely disgusting.

The deserts round was another.. By that stage we were the only table still having dinner, because it was so slow. We managed to get someone to take our desert order but when the deserts then came they were the wrong ones.. When I pointed this out, the response was „oh, so sorry about that“ and the waiter urned around and just walked off. No fixing the problem, nothing. Keep in mind we were the only table still ordering by that stage. Talk about obviously not giving a f**k.

Bad luck that evening you might say…? Unfortunately no. It felt deliberate and systematic. We watched throughout the evening as the tables around us with local Portuguese / Lisbon guest got fantastic attentive service. We were conveyed the feeling from the get-go that we were not welcome and actually just an annoyance. Mestrias has had some positive social media attention recently. I suspect they figure tourists are one-timers, won’t be coming back, so their experience / patronage doesn’t matter.. That’s what it felt like at least.

What they didn’t know was that my husband and father in law (also present but who kept quite quiet during the evening) are in fact Portuguese and were horrified and embarrassed by the experience. If it hadn’t been for my elderly father-in-law not being particularly mobile we would have left after the first hour. He in fact commented when we got back home that any of the tourist-trap restaurants in Alfama would have been a better option.

The food itself? It was mediocre / ok. Worth trying? ..if you are in the vicinity and really hungry, maybe.. Was it worth traveling across the city for? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

LITTLE ADDENDUM: It’s the next morning and I was up all night with stomach cramps and now have diarrhea. What’s that phrase: „The gift that just keeps on giving…“

In summary: I wouldn’t recommend this place to my worst enemy, if they are a foreigner. If they are local or identifyably Portuguese, that’s a different story. They’ll probably be treated well and have a...

Mestrias, Nova Tasca is a hidden restaurant tucked away in a quiet, residential corner of Lisbon, just up a small, charming hill from the harbour. It’s the kind of place that makes you feel like you’ve stumbled upon something truly special – authentic Portuguese cuisine served with no fuss, just soul and flavour.

We opted to dine Al fresco in their cosy little outdoor area. It’s peaceful, which is perfect when you want to focus on the food and the conversation. And oh, the food! The fried goat’s cheese starter was a revelation – crisp, creamy, and so moreish we almost ordered it again for dessert. Every dish was honest, hearty, and a true taste of Portuguese home cooking, exactly as it should be.

Vera, our delightful waitress, took fantastic care of us. Her command of English far outshone our attempts at Portuguese, and she expertly guided us through the menu and the wine list. Portions here are generous, and each dish is delivered with an authenticity that makes it well worth the slight detour from the main tourist track.

If you're hungry for genuine, no-nonsense Portuguese classics, Mestrias is your place. We’ll definitely be back! Menu translations attached-...

It’s a Master indeed.... Let's start with a not-so-fresh sweet wine, then move on to tapas that even the worst home cook couldn't prepare so poorly. Next, a pica pay with three tough pieces of meat and a terrible sauce. Let's continue with a cockroach on the lid of the women's toilet and proceed to dessert, without even clearing the table of dinner leftovers. We ended without an apology, having to leave early because we wanted to use the restroom that the cockroach prevented us from using. Such mastery these "masters" display. And in the end, we didn't even get a discount. We paid €95 for three people, for bland food that not even the worst cook would make. Any dirty and old tavern would fare better than this "masterpiece." Because even with the cockroach, the food was much better, the service would have been much friendlier, the wine would have been chilled, and we would certainly have received a discount, with money left over for a tavern-hopping tour around Lisbon.

In the end, I actually laughed, both at the name of the restaurant and at everything that happened... it was truly a big joke, a touch that could only be delivered by a...