Cafe Liz — Restaurant in Philadelphia

I am portuguese, so I am very critical of portuguese restaurants/bakeries because i want to be served the real thing, and a lot of people claim it, but then they can't bring it. I was in philadelphia for a mini vacation, we drove here 25 minutes on purpose, and i was a little disappointed. It's small and busy, the atmosphere was good, just a little loud. The table wasn't clean, but they did come clean after I pointed it out. The biggest disappointment was no egg custards, pasteis de Nata! That was the whole point! It was 2:30, and they said they ran out usually by this time. If you know that happens every day, why not make more??? They also only had 2 or 3 other pastries. Then I asked for 2 sandwiches, the bifana and my husband had an egg sandwich. So, if they are doing their own version of the portuguese sandwich " Bifana" the most popular sandwich in Portugal, it was ok. Too much paprika, really, too much red cabbage, this is not at all the popular portuguese bifana, so I was a bit confused! It had so much paprika that the meat was red. Was it bad? No! But it is not what you will be expecting, knowing this sandwich. All in all, I wasn't totally happy. I wish them good luck. Maybe they can do little changes to...

Don't judge a book by its cover! This doesn't look like much from the outside, but the restaurant upstairs has outstanding truly authentic Portuguese food. And yes, it was well worth the drive up from center city Philadelphia for dinner!

It is casual but comfortable, with a small dining room and good service. The traditional dishes were great - just like being back in Portugal. The bolinhas de bacalhau and sizzling chorizo appetizers were excellent. I had bacalhau a bras as an entre (salt cod, eggs & potato), which was really outstanding. Everything else we had at the table was good. Modestly priced - including the wine list (limited selection but just fine!).

I used to drive up to A Taste of Portugal on Rising Sun - which was also very traditional Portuguese food - but it closed a few years ago. I also loved Koo Zee Doo in Northern Liberties - a bit more upscale and innovative - but it also closed.

I had never tried Cafe Liz before now, but I'm glad I did. It doesn't look like a "destination" restaurant - but if you are craving traditional Portuguese food, its the...

Since when is a group of 3 a large party?

I’ve been coming here for 10+ years with my family and unfortunately we won’t be coming here any more.

I came to Cafe Liz on Sunday with my mother and grandmother. We waited for 30-45 minutes to get our appetizer and around an hour for the waitress to take our order. It took us 1h 30min to get our main plates and they were lackluster. The steak was unseasoned and half of the bacalao was inedible due to the cut of the “fillet”.

To top it all off our bill came with a “large party fee” for our table of three with a 18% tip. Since when is a party of 3 a large party?

They could’ve easily gotten a larger tip (which we’ve given for years) if they didn’t try to pull a sleazy move like that.

Cafe Liz is a shell of what...