The ideal, quintessential Lisbon seafood experience…
If you’re wondering where to eat the best seafood in Lisbon, Ramiro is the one. This is where locals and visitors alike head in their droves – expect queues with a capital Q – to eat the finest seafood of the region in the organised chaos of the city’s most famous cervejaria. And while the name suggests beer is the headlining act, it’s stuff from the sea which gets top billing.
If you’re looking for a quiet meal, then head elsewhere. Here the atmosphere is cheerful, the service boisterous and the restaurant, whose walls are covered in beautiful tiles that depict underwater life, bright. You’ll need the lights on to be able to wield one of those wooden crab mallets, after all.
It’s one of those radical places where you’ll likely break bread with the stranger next to you – the clams in garlic are too good not to share. The enormous tiger prawns are definitely worth ordering too, but the absolute standout is the scarlet prawns, each with enough head juice to fill a coffee mug. Though that sounds like an agreeable drink, it’s even better mopped up with a mountain of buttered, toasted bread rolls, which come gratis with everything.
Wash it all down with a bottle of Portugal’s famous vinho verde and finish with a steak sandwich for dessert, because, well, everyone does. And this is one situation when we’re more than happy to swim with the shoal rather than against the tide.
If you really don’t have room for anymore food, their vodka-spiked lemon sorbet provides a light and refreshing end to what will most likely be one of the best meals of your life.
We wish that every big city had a Cervejaria Ramiro to call its own, but since this restaurant is one in a million, we’ll happily settle for travelling to Lisbon and having a superlative seafood feast for the price of a whole lobster back home.
Directions
Address: Av. Alm. Reis 1, 1150-038 Lisboa, Portugal
Website: cervejariaramiro.com
