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One dining room, one bar, one terraceBreakfast worth getting up for
We do not pretend to run a destination restaurant. We run a dining room that is very good at three things: breakfast, an early dinner, and a drink at the hour when Lisbon turns gold.
Salão Verde
The old residents' dining room, still in its 1938 green lacquered panelling, with the brass sconces rewired and the terrazzo floor polished back. Forty-four covers, half of them at banquettes along the window.
Breakfast is served to the table, not from a buffet: eggs as you want them, pastries from Manteigaria two streets away, fruit from the Ribeira market, cheese and presunto from a short list that changes with what the supplier has. It is included in every rate.
From seven in the evening the kitchen runs a menu of eight dishes — grilled fish, a rice, a slow-cooked meat, two vegetable plates — written each morning on the card by the door. Chef Marta Sequeira cooked eleven years in Alentejo before coming back to the city, and it shows in the pork and the bread.
- Breakfast 07:00–10:30 (11:00 at weekends), included
- Dinner 19:00–22:30, Tuesday to Saturday
- Eight dishes, written daily; three courses about €52
- Non-residents welcome when there is room — call the same day
Bar 1938
Nine stools at a zinc counter, a brass foot rail worn shiny in two places, and a back bar of Portuguese spirits — aguardente, ginjinha, a wall of madeira going back to a 1978 Sercial that is poured by the glass and should be.
Nuno behind the bar makes four cocktails properly and will tell you honestly that the fifth one you are asking for is better somewhere else. There is a short list of petiscos until midnight if dinner did not happen.
- Madeira and port by the glass, twenty-six labels
- Petiscos until 00:00
- No music after 23:00 — there are bedrooms above
The garden terrace
Sixteen seats under the lemon tree in the interior courtyard, laid for breakfast from April and for drinks until sunset. It is two floors below the avenue and you stop hearing the traffic after about a minute.
This is where dogs eat, where the long-stay guests end up with their laptops at eleven in the morning, and where we put the one table that is impossible to book in the evening. Ask at reception and we will try.
Hours and house rules
| Where | Days | Hours | Booking |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salão Verde — breakfast | Daily | 07:00–10:30 · 11:00 Sat–Sun | Not needed |
| Salão Verde — dinner | Tue–Sat | 19:00–22:30 | Advised |
| Bar 1938 | Daily | 16:00–01:00 | Walk in |
| Garden terrace | Apr–Oct | 08:00–sunset | Walk in |
| In-suite dining | Daily | 07:00–23:00 | Dial 9 |
| Honesty bar, fifth floor | Daily | 24 hours | Sign the book |
Where we send guests to eat
Around the corner
Cervejaria Ramiro for shellfish at an awkward hour, Taberna Sal Grosso in Alfama for the best value in the city. Rui books both; walk-ins wait ninety minutes.
Worth the taxi
Belcanto and Alma hold the Michelin stars. We can usually get a table at three weeks' notice, occasionally at three days if somebody cancels.
Market mornings
The Mercado da Ribeira opens at six. Go before nine, buy fish, and the kitchen will cook it for you at lunch for €12 a head.
Late and loud
When the bar shuts at one, Pensão Amor and the Cais do Sodré are eight minutes downhill. We will leave the door unlatched and the night porter is awake.
A table for dinner, or the kitchen stocked before you arrive
Both are arranged the same way: tell the reception what you want and when.