Gourmet Walk with Inside Lisbon

I only have praises for this Gourmet Walk that we had with Inside Lisbon.  For the price of €25 per person, we had an crash course on Portuguese food, history and culture in just one evening.

Ok we got lucky. How?

We signed up for the group walking tour and when we showed up at the meeting point, it was just the two of us – making it a private tour!  Initially, I had thought about not joining this walk as our schedule would be very tight and we would be doing this walk the day we got into Lisbon which could be tiring.

This was such a last minute decision that I had to call Inside Lisbon to confirm they had received our booking as it was made less than 48 hours prior to the start of the tour.

Getting back to the tour itself, the description of the Gourmet Walk is perfectly stated on the Inside Lisbon website and while it doesn’t indicate the duration, our walk lasted more than 3 hours.

One of the main reasons I decided to do the walk is to learn more about Portuguese food.  That was accomplished for sure and Paulo, our guide,  is a walking encyclopedia on Portuguese food and its history. He shared with us so many interesting facts and his wealth of knowledge about Lisbon made this walk incredibly educational.

Besides being filled with information, we also had a good share of tastings.  While it wasn’t as plentiful as a food tour I did in Rome, it was more than sufficient that I could skip dinner.

The Gourmet Walk started off with a bang as we stopped to taste Port, cheese and marmalade.  The Port was so smooth and for a person who doesn’t usually drink, I found myself wanting to taste more Port!

As for the marmalade, I have never seen marmalade in slices and when I bit into a slice, wow it was sweet alright and this is from a person who has a sweet tooth.  For my husband, I could see it was excruciating sweet for him!

During the Gourmet Walk, while we did not have the opportunity to step into every bar, cafe or store, we stopped by well-known eateries for Paulo to point out the specialty they offered.  One such place is the famous Confeitaria Nacional which is famous for its King’s Cake (Bolo Rei).

He had mentioned that people would literally wait for hours to get their hands on one for Christmas Day!

With all that teasing of baked goods, we finally headed to taste pastel de nata.  We had already had one for breakfast but that didn’t stop us from having another one!  Looking back, we had more than our fair share of pastel de nata the 3 days we were in Lisbon.

Of all the tastings, one that I thought we would enjoy the least would be the cod fish cake.  Wrong!  It was absolutely delicious, to the point we came back on another day to have them again and to try the other goodies.

To end the evening, we had savories and tapas at Casa do Alentejo which is an attraction by its own right. And to wrap up, we had a sip of cherry brandy. That for me was the least enjoyable tasting as it was way too strong for my taste.

What was also a plus was that Paulo recommended some  restaurants in Bairro Alto and Chiado. Although we only had a few days and knew it would be difficult to eat at all those places, we made an effort to have dinner in Cervejaria Trindade the following day despite our extreme tiredness.

Overall, this Gourmet Walk with Inside Lisbon was a great start to our trip and seriously, for only €25 it was money very well spent!  That’s the reason for writing the post because it is always a pleasure sharing positive experiences and this Gourmet Walk is definitely value for money.