Português de Gema — Restaurant in Porto

We stumbled upon this little gem yesterday while walking through Porto and it turned out to be one of the best dining experiences of our trip.

The restaurant is absolutely charming – there’s a small terrace in the courtyard behind the building where it’s so quiet you almost forget you’re in the middle of Porto. Inside it’s just as lovely, with a cosy atmosphere and even a small spiral staircase leading up to a half-floor with a wine cellar.

We arrived quite early, around 6 pm, ordered a glass of red wine and immediately felt at home. Sharing dishes was no problem at all for the staff, which we really appreciated.

For starters we had the cornbread-topped codfish and the mushrooms in port wine reduction. Both were excellent – the mushroom dish was a bit peppery because of the red peppercorns, but once we moved a few aside it was simply delicious. The sauce itself is outstanding, especially if you enjoy a good peppery kick.

For the main course we went for the pork belly with chestnuts and rice on the side. The pork belly was incredibly tender and surprisingly lean, with almost no fat – just perfect.

We ended up staying until about 9 pm, enjoying the peaceful atmosphere.

A special mention goes to Antonio, our server. He was incredibly friendly and attentive, and when things were still quiet he even had time to chat with us. From 7:30 pm onwards the restaurant got quite busy and he was working alone, but he still managed everything quickly and with a smile.

We also appreciated the social aspect of the restaurant – only noticed after looking more closely at the menu – which made us feel even better about dining here.

A big thank you to Antonio and to the kitchen team for making our evening so memorable.

Highly recommended – 5 stars...

Ahhh this was such a wonderful restaurant. It was one of my favorites during our trip! We loved sitting on the patio and basking in the sun. This was one of two restaurants during our time in Portugal where they spoke to me in Portuguese and didn't just switch to English immediately hahah which I appreciated but quickly regretted because my Portuguese was not quite as good as I thought but they were super nice about it

All the food here is SO good. We ordered the bacalhau lascado em crosta de broa (flaked cod in cornbread crust) and bochechas de porco preto confitadas (pork cheek chunks with chestnuts) which came with rice and bread. We got recommendations from our server on what to drink and chose the vinho verde which was lovely.

Overall this felt like our most authentic Portuguese dining experience. I enjoyed getting to try to speak Portuguese along with trying food that I had never had before. Would highly recommend grabbing a meal in this hidden gem. It is...

I've read the reviews before going. Since the reviews were all great, I was really excited to go. The patio was really cool and cozy. We were looking to have some local wines and only some tapas like dishes. The waiter seemed disappointed when we only ordered starters. We received the wine and waited more than half hour to get food. Everybody around was getting food and even finishing even the ones that came after us. He forgot to write down our entire order. He eventually came with a few of them and then we waited for another half hour for another glass of wine and the remaining starters. we decided to leave. he promised to fix everything. Eventually the tripe stew came but in the main course size, not the starter as we first asked. Not sure why people say it's cheap either, the starters go for the price of an entire menu . Can't argue that the food wasn't good. It was. The service ruined it...