Francesinhas Al Forno da Baixa — Restaurant in Porto

We were lured here because someone tagged it as gluten free food, which I guess it is, however not in the way I was expecting.

So basically a lot of the items on the menu give their ingredients, but then others get lost, so some Francesinhas say they have wheat and some don’t, but I don’t understand how the dish can be the dish without, it seems much more likely they have forgotten the ingredient, which of course means where else have they forgotten the ingredient.

I chose to tread wearily and had garlic mushrooms, fries and a chicken salad. My partner had a pizza, which had gluten in, but was vegetarian.

The food was nice, with the selection above and two cocoa colas the bill translated into pounds was just £21 (this included two portions of fries). It became clear the venue is very popular, not remotely surprising given the price if the food.

The restaurant sits on the back streets yet manages to draw a massive audience, when we left a queue had formed desperate to get in and on that basis, popularity and good food makes a great mix.

But don’t be lured my sites stating it’s a gluten free restaurant, the only items that are gluten free are ones that would not be made with gluten and here lies the difference. It is however incredibly good for vegetarians and vegans in fact I’d say that is possibly the...

Food: We got the Francesinha with chorizo puff pastry style. While on the menu it said it would take around 30 minutes, it came faster. It was really good. The wine that our server recommended was also really good and incredibly cheap compared to American prices. The CHEESECAKE. Unique and absolutely delicious. It came in a jar, and the cheesecake part was light and had almost like a Greek yogurt texture. It was so good we had to get another one. I highly recommend the berry version but that’s my personal preference.

Service: I would rate this a 4.8/5. The servers we got didn’t really know too much English, and we didn’t know a lick of Portuguese, and knew a mangled version of Spanish. It was slightly difficult to ask for recommendations and to order, but when it was all said and done, their recommendations hit the spot. Also, one of the servers gave us a free tasting of Porto wine when we said we haven’t tried it yet, which was extremely nice of them. I’m not a huge fan of Porto wine because of how sweet it is, but the wine that they gave us wasn’t bad at all and had a sort of clove/black currant flavor which...

During our stay in Portugal we had the pleasure of eating some of the best food we ever had. The sad exception to these culinary Highlights was this restaurant.

We were thrilled to find a place that serves vegan francesinha, and as all the vegan food we had eaten had been amazing so far, I went into this place with great expectations. Service was quick and friendly, but the food was extremely disappointing. I had the meat version of the dish, my partner the vegan option. Maybe the sandwich underneath might even have been good, but the sauce just tasted off: overly salty, peppered, and weirdly spiced. I don't know who made this sauce, tasted it and thought: " Yes, perfect, this is ready to be served". Trying not to ruin each other's evening, we only talked about what we thought about the food after leaving the restaurant and had a good laugh about this being our worst culinary experience of our trip so far.

The only reason this place can continue to exist must be that tourists come once to try the francesinha and never return, just to be replaced by a fresh batch of unsuspecting culinary explorers.

My advice:...