Porto has established itself as one of the world’s most popular destinations over the last decade.

This comes with big, exciting revamps to the city’s dining scene, which seems to constantly be adding more creative and trendy restaurants to its roster year after year. Whether it’s a bold tasting menu of top-notch Portuguese ingredients or a quirky wine bar with fabulous food, Porto has a fresh crop of eclectic restaurants to make any trip gastronomically memorable. Here are our 6 favorite restaurants in Porto right now!

 

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Euskalduna Studio is the most interactive and exciting place for a tasting menu in Porto. The restaurant converts fine dining into a more personal and less pretentious affair. Rather than sitting at separate tables, diners sit upfront at a long countertop table with the open kitchen before them, similar to an omakase. From the start, the chefs say that they are also the waiters who will be taking care of every need. The floating sommelier will pop in to recommend wine pairings and ask what guests are in the mood to drink. From there, each diner is treated to a highly interactive gastronomic journey of watching chefs adeptly cooking superb ingredients and bringing them straight to their plate.

Euskalduna Studio works with top-notch Portuguese ingredients to transform them into something new, with various international influences. There’s a strong Japanese influence, which makes sense given the seating format and wabi-sabi design of the restaurant. Opening plates include tasty, fun bites like a home-baked sourdough pancake filled with oysters and seaweed salad, topped with teriyaki glaze, and takoyaki stuffed with kogi and squid rice made with delicate broth from grilled squid tentacles.

The main dishes move on to exciting ingredients like amberjack that’s dry-aged in-house for 10-12 days, accompanied by a delectable blood orange leche de tigre and purple carrot salad. This season’s menu includes flank steak and beef tartare sourced from a small family farm and butcher shop that only sells one cow per week. The meat is tender and especially flavorful when accompanied by the grilled artichoke puree topped with coffee.

The menu may also feature dishes that lean more traditional Portuguese, like the feijoca bean stew, which seems humble but is undoubtedly a standout, featuring black trumpet cooked on charcoal and topped with sparkling koji rice crumble and pistachio. The rich savory taste of the stew mixed with the crunch from the beans and acidity of the sparkling koji is a perfect symphony of textures and flavors. Then there’s a variation of baked rice made with quail instead of the usual duck, featuring some crispy skin plus a cream made from the quail’s heart and liver.

Add in the friendly chefs that introduce themselves before graciously explaining each dish, and one is in for an elevated yet personable fine dining experience that one will find looking back on fondly.

Borboleta is the daytime (or anytime) bistro of everybody’s dreams, complete with a big garden patio for big groups of friends. The restaurant is luminous and spacious, with the wide-open kitchen integrated into the dining room. The bright, airy space permeates a sense of ease and whimsy, as guests happily tuck into delicious plates and a glass of wine.

The menu has a Middle Eastern touch and offers appetizing items that’ll make everyone at the table happy. Start off with small plates like grape ceviche with fresh herbs and labneh or eggplant hazilim dip with sesame crackers. The seasonal salad is comprised of the most perfectly shaped baby romaine and Belgian endive leaves, with an equally perfect lemon and dukkah dressing. The star dish that cannot be missed is the chicken liver with mango, mushrooms, and heavenly Middle Eastern sauces. While chicken liver may be an overtly adventurous item for some, this dish at Borboleta with its richly aromatic and slightly sweet sauce, will undoubtedly change many minds.

Other mains include enticing plates such as sesame-crusted seabass with whipped tahini-yogurt sauce, beef and lamb kebabs with tzatziki and sumac, and pan-seared octopus with chickpea and roasted pepper ragout.

Any occasion, or no occasion, is a perfect excuse to eat and drink at Borboleta, where the vibes are always happy and the food is bound to make everyone happier still.

As far as top-tier Japanese restaurants go, it would be hard to find one in Porto that tops Kaigi which offers guests a proper omakase experience in a polished, minimalist space, but the overall vibe is relaxed and convivial throughout. The restaurant remains warm and intimate thanks to the honey-colored wood, which covers most of the space, and the fact that there are only 20 covers and one private table in the entire joint. The service is warm and congenial, with the sommelier, Martin, who regularly checks in with each guest to have a chat and suggest fun pairings for the evening.

While the service follows that of a proper omakase, Kaigi is able to tap into the excellent Portuguese ingredients that abound from its shores. Expect to taste the best of Atlantic delicacies like raw Algarve shrimp, red snapper nigiri from Galicia, and dry-aged amberjack.

There are also creative interludes throughout, like the tempura course with crunchy mackerel and chimichurri wrapped up in fried nori, pork neck in teriyaki sauce with homemade Hokkaido milk bread, and mochi with queijo de Ilha cheese from the Azores topped with pear glazed in Madeira wine.

Kaigi offers a high-quality omakase experience with Portuguese flair, one that won’t be found anywhere else. Be sure to book a table in advance to secure a spot in one of the two services the restaurant does each evening.

Tenro by Digby is the perfect restaurant to go to when for a meal with excellent views of the Douro without the tourist crowds. As part of the hotel Torel Avantgarde, Digby is ideally located just below the Jardins do Palacio de Cristal, away from the hordes around Ribeira. Thus, one can get spectacular views of the same beautiful slice of the river seen from the gardens, but in a trendy restaurant setting.

Digby is named after Sir Kenelm Digby, a 17th-century Renaissance man who was a philosopher, diplomat, and cookbook author, among many other things, who also happened to invent the modern wine bottle. The namesake of the restaurant inspires the classically elegant touches of wood and cork of the interior.

Sir Digby’s cookbook was applied to Portuguese cuisine to create an exciting menu that expertly blends traditional Portuguese cooking with nouveau techniques. Think classic fish caldeirada but with monkfish and eel or Iberian pork presa “à alentejana” with seaweed and pickles. Digby also offers an excellent executive menu on weekdays for lunch. The executive menu includes a high-end starter and along with a main dish like cappelletti mushroom ravioli with XO sauce or stingray with gremolata, plus dessert and wine, which is well worth the price tag of 35 euros.

One visit to Genuino and everyone will be instantly grateful to have found a cool wine bar where the food is also very, very good. Genuino is the love project of owners Gustavo and Gabriela Johann, the latter of whom is responsible for the most delicious share plates to be found at a wine bar. The bar is groovy and laid-back, decorated with funky art, dusty pink walls, and a disco ball.

Genuino deals in natural wines only and has a knack for finding gems from all over Portugal and beyond. Any of the friendly staff members can give a rundown on the wine region where each wine is from, how it’s produced, and why it has such a unique flavor. The bar even has a rotating menu of special wines that are preserved with the Coravin system that you can order by the glass.

The menu changes seasonally and exhibits Chef Gabriela’s fun, creative flair in the kitchen. There will always be more than enough appetizing plates to choose from, like cannoli with fish rillette and sea lettuce, chicken parfait on a brioche drizzled in balsamic blueberry, or mackerel with creme fraiche, daikon, and melon. The hearty focaccia is baked in Genuino’s sister restaurant and pizzeria, Generosa, then served with fermented bell pepper butter and pickles, which are all homemade as well. Everybody’s favorite is the clam lasagna, which even Gustavo admits is an original dish they’re especially proud of. Cooked lasagna noodles are served in a comforting garlicky sauce, then topped with Bulhão Pato clams and cured Alentejo pork jowl. Genuino’s lasagna is straightforward, filling, and will make everybody want to go back for more.

As Porto’s trendiest natural wine bar, Genuino is full on any given night of the week; thus, reservations are highly recommended.

Pot and Pan is a hotel restaurant that’s genuinely worth going to. Set inside the design-forward Rebello Hotel, the restaurant occupies a former cookware factory where pots and pans were made. Pot and Pan is a funky and intimate space featuring sleek booths and whimsical artworks of pots and pans on the walls. The place is trendy yet unpretentious and is a great destination for a fun dinner out with friends.

Following the unpretentious tip, the menu directly states it’s all about “Hardcore Home Cooking.” The plates lean into humble and comforting, with a nod to Portuguese ingredients and heritage. The current menu features braised veal cheek, garlic Atlantic prawn, and fish and prawn rice (if they ever bring back the duck rice, don’t think twice about ordering it.)

Pot and Pan also takes their devotion to Portuguese wines very seriously. Their extensive wine list involves every type of wine from each terroir in Portugal, divided into the Atlantic, Valleys, and the South. There’s nothing more divine than sipping on a sparkling Albariño or a richly layered red from the Douro Valley while nibbling on tasty family-style plates.

Whenever the mood hits for good, comforting food and drink, Pot and Pan will rise to the occasion to show everyone a great time with cheer and style.