If you fancy a coffee and slice of chocolate cake in the sun, Linha D`Água should be your destination. The self-service snack bar, consisting mainly of outdoor seating, is situated in a grassy hollow in Jardim da Amália Rodrigues at the top off Parque Eduardo VII, right behind El Corte Ingles department store.

The wooden esplanada is on the edge of a pretty, shallow ornamental pond, complete with funky fountain in the middle of it and is a perfect sun trap. There is the usual array of sweet and savory Portuguese snacks to be sampled (I recommend the chocolate cake) as well as light main dishes (the quiche is pretty good too!). Linha D`Água has a license to sell alcohol, so is also a place to go if you would like to go for some quiet sundown drinks before heading to the cinema at ECI or off down the hill into town.

People flock to this snack bar at the weekend to have late lunches or simply to catch up with friends over a beer and the whole area is a hive of activity with people walking their dogs in the park and sitting enjoying the sunshine.  Summer is on its way and this cafe is becoming busier as people celebrate the end of the cold days!

On a bright, sunny day (of which there are many in Lisbon) I love to retreat to this little cafe to relax next to the water whilst Lisbon traffic continues to rush on around me.

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Linha D`Água | Coffee & tea, Snacks | Light meal & drink € 10
Rua Marquês de Fronteira, Jardim da Amália Rodrigues | Avenidas | +351213814327
10:00 – 20:00 daily

This is one of Lisbon’s oldest providers of bread, cakes and biscuits and all things yummy. Established in 1902 in Saldanha, this pastry shop has one of the widest selections of sweet treats that I have seen in Lisbon.

The huge glass-fronted display cases act as windows into a world of such a variety of traditional Portuguese pasteis de nata, cream cakes, apple tarts and petit fours that you can spend some time deliberating what to have with your coffee (which you will drink standing up at one of the tables around the room).

My favourite cake of all time in Lisbon is the pastel de nata, and the bakers at Sequeira have not let me down – these little pastries are always fresh and the pastry flakes perfectly. This pastelaria is very popular with the locals of the Saldanha area.

Sequeira also bakes these delights in perfect miniature form so you can buy a whole selection to take away with you and sample at your leisure (we often have a selection of these around the office!).

There is a restaurant attached to the bakery where you can have lunch, usually consisting of soup and a buffet selection of traditional Portuguese dishes such as duck rice, fish dishes (bacalhau) or stews. Sequeira is closed on Sundays.

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Pastelaria Sequeira | Coffee & tea, Snacks | Coffee & cake € 5
Avenida da República 11A | Avenidas | +351213140749
Mon – Fri 07:00 – 20:00, Sat 07:00 – 19:00

Lisbon has the most fabulous fresh fruit, vegetable and fish markets where it is possible to buy healthy, fresh food for extremely reasonable prices.

Even if you are here for a weekend, staying in a hotel in the Saldanha area and don’t need to cook for yourself, it is worth popping into Mercado 31 Janeiro for the experience. The ground floor of the market is a brightly-colored, lively area with a vast array of fresh fruit and vegetables laid out in the centre whilst the sides of the hall are flanked by butchers’ stalls selling fresh cuts of meat. The sellers call out as you walk past their stalls to try and tempt you into buying their wares.

The mezzanine floor consists of the fresh fish market and there is a restaurant up there too. The variety of fresh fish in Lisbon is superb and I love to go here to buy salmon steaks to cook. This is not for the faint-hearted if you don’t like the smell of fish or are disturbed by the sight of whole fish and squid reposing on beds of ice! At one end of the floor is the fresh flower stall which provides a burst of color to the cooler, slightly austere air of the fish market.

There is a small vegetarian cafe on the ground floor of the market which serves sumptuous soup and various vegetarian meals. This cafe is open at lunch time during the week and is closed during the month of August.

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Mercado 31 de Janeiro | Shopping, Snacks | Lunch € 10
Rua Engenheiro Vieira da Silva | Avenidas | +351213540988
Mon – Sat 07:00 – 14:00

Another outdoor space in which to consume food and drink – this time in Parque Eduardo VII. Once you have admired the view from the top of the Parque, down Avenida Liberdade to the river, take a break at the Botequim do Rei cafe which is attached to a restaurant of the same name and consists of an esplanade next to a pond that is home to a variety of water birds and a shoal of koi carp. In the other direction, the tables look down onto an unusual, ornately decorated, disused gym hall that somehow manages to blend into the park.

This space is well sheltered from the wind and serves as an efficient sun-trap where you can enjoy the peace and quiet of the park. I love to go there with a book on sunny days and read, or just relax watching the birds float around unperturbed on the pond. It is possible to order food from the snack menu at any time, but there are also outdoor tables that are set up under an awning and from here you can take advantage of the full restaurant menu whilst enjoying the fresh air.

The waiters speak excellent English and while I suspect this cafe may be a bit touristy, the location, for me, makes up for this. The menu is the same as you would expect in any snack bar of this nature in Portugal.

This restaurant and esplanade is closed on Mondays.

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Botequim do Rei – Esplanada | Coffee & tea, Relaxing, Restaurants (Portuguese) | Meal € 13.00
Parque Eduardo VII | Avenidas | +351213160891
Tue – Sun 10:00 – 22:00

This is the place I have always hoped would open in Lisbon, and it did last year, by the end of November. The only Tintin store I have visited till now has always been in Brussels, and although the Lisbon store is not as big as the Brussels one, you can find in here almost everything the trademark Tintin sells, such as postales, pins, agendas, notebooks and PVC figures. They also sell clothing for all seasons, books, watches and miniatures of the famous car from Hergé stories… There is even a room filled with Tintin’s book covers, which belong to the owner and Tintin fan, Paulo Ferreira de Almeida.

At the same place, you have a very nice and cozy Cafe-Lounge with also recalls Hergé Character’s heroism, as it has some very nice original lithographs of Tintin books as wall decoration. What attracted me most, besides being a cafe with Tintin’s allusion, is the way the tables are organized, making each space of the cafe very different and private. The menu holds no surprises, except for the Belgian beers, of course. I suggest their muffin – unbelievably good!

The only problem the cafe still faces is a lack of organization. Sometimes the delay in the service is just unacceptable, but I like the place so much that I really never cared about that.

They also serve lunch, as a “meal of the day” basis and salads and are opened till really late. And, best of all, on Mondays.

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Espaço Tintin | Bars, Coffee & tea, Shopping, Snacks
Av. de Roma, 39 A | Avenidas | +351217935582
Mon – Thu 08:30 – 23:00, Fri – Sat 08:30 – 01:00, Mon 14:00 – 19:00

One could say the place has nothing to do with zen. It’s an ordinary restaurant, well decorated, smoke-free and with some giant flower pictures on the wall. But a restaurant is about paladar, right? And if the restaurant is vegetarian, and serves some delicious food, then we could talk about our paladar being zen!

And best of all, it’s an “all you can eat” buffet, meaning I will always eat until I can’t anymore. And believe me, even with vegetarian food this may happen, because the food is so good and I always want to try everything. The menu varies every day and they hardly repeat. I have been there a lot of times and never got an repeat. And normally they have, available for you, one kind of soup, many salads and many juicy and tasty hot plates. On their website it’s possible to check the meals they are serving that day.

Only the food is included in the price. If you want to drink their weird and good natural juices or eat their wonderful desserts, which are not diet at all, you have to pay apart.

I am not vegetarian, and I love eating meat, but I never miss it when I go to Paladar Zen.

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Paladar Zen | Restaurants (Vegetarian) | Dinner € 9.95
Avenida Barbosa du Bocage 107 C | Avenidas | +351217950009
Mon – Sat 12:00 – 15:30 & 19:30 – 00:00

What can I say about any Pizzeria which is actually necessary to be said? Not much. But if this little makes all the difference, that’s another story.

So Finestra is one of the best pizzerias in town. And I can testify that their pizzas are absolutely yummy. Most pizzas are named after an Italian city, like Modena, Parma, Padova, Ferrara… My favourite one is “Venezia”,which obviously is the most non-diet pizza they serve. To begin with, It has an poached egg on the top! It may seem gross, but believe me, it’s delicious!

Another thing that I always order there is their “Sangria“. They don’t serve that simple and boring, although good, normal sangria. They serve pineapple sangria, mango sangria, melon sangria, and others I cannot remember, probably for drinking them too much. I also use to drink their delicious non-alcoholic cinnamon Italian tea, which is not to be missed!

The desserts are another highlight. I usually go for the Panna Cota, a classic, or the chocolate cake with ice-cream. And what a creamy chocolate cake! As you can see, I am a perfect glutton when I go there.

A good advice is to reserve a table before going there. A good restaurant is always crowded.

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Pizzeria La Finestra | Restaurants (Italian) | 3-course meal € 20
Avenida Conde de Valbom Nº52-A | Avenidas | +351217613580
12:00 – 15:30 & 19:00 – 01:00 daily

Pão Doce stands for sweet bread, which is a very nice name indeed. Why exactly would I speak about a bakery? Well, because Portuguese have something to do with good bakeries around the world, and that’s not for any reason, Portuguese are really good bakers, and this bakery is the perfect example of this ability.

Actually the owner is Brazilian, of Portuguese descent. The bakery is always crowded, basically around the time the bread is still smoking, which is early morning and late afternoon. But even if there is a line, it is worth waiting, since there is nothing better than a just cooked bread. I cannot list all the types of breads they make, the variety is immense and I haven’t tried even half of them. There is the “tiger bread”, the grandma’s bread, the dark bread, the eight cereals bread, the Spanish, the German…it’s exhausting!

My favorites are the yummy scones, the perfect croissants and the pies they make are really delicious. I am always amazed by the huge bags full of breads people carry with them out of Pão Doce.

The surrounding area was all renewed last year, with the front street becoming a lovely promenade. And, of course, making a good esplanade possible for snacks and even lunches. Now no one can resist!

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Pão Doce Bakery | Coffee & tea, Snacks
Av. Duque Ávila 56 – D | Avenidas | +3513141068
Tue – Sun 08:00 – 20:00

This is the only place in Europe that I actually order a hot-dog. Not that I think the others are disgusting or something like that, but this hot-dog made by HOTDOG LOVERS is the only one worth eating, in my humble opinion. They are giant, they are well filled, they are delicious! And most of all, you can eat your hot-dog delighting the most famous avenue in Lisbon.

They sell four types of hot-dogs, the normal one (very good!), the complete one (with cabbage), the chilli and the vegetarian. All of them in a special bread, filled with special sauces, fries and lots of cheese. Oh, and the sausage.

Other than the food, this spot is really cool during the weekend, at night. A lot of music and people on the street, open air. Really cool!

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Hotdog Lovers | Bars, Music, Snacks | Hotdog & drink € 5
Av. da Liberdade, posto 2 | Avenidas
Mon – Wed 10:00 – 23:00, Sat – Sun 10:00 – 02:00

Looks from the outside like a fruit shop! But it’s not – Frutalmeidas is a funky salad bar with some of the nicest salad combinations I have found in Lisbon. Frutalmeidas have been in Lisbon for many years as a chain of fresh fruit and vegetable shops that have a cafeteria attached to them but this one is a fairly new standalone salad bar in the Saldanha area – just behind the Sheraton Hotel.

Upstairs in the coffee shop you can have a coffee and choose from a selection of cakes or savoury snacks, and downstairs is the cafeteria-style salad bar where you pre-pay and then choose from an extensive menu of quiches, salads, omelettes or burgers. The salads range from traditional greek salads to combinations of kiwifruit, avocado and apple with some walnuts thrown in, on a base of lettuce or pasta, whichever you prefer. They also have fresh fruit salad on the menu and their freshly created fruit juices are to die for!! They taste just like they are fruit that has been blended with a tiny bit of water which makes them super-fruity!

This salad bar tends to be very busy at lunch times during the week where people queue up to have their lunch but if you choose your time wisely there is no wait at all. It is well worth it if you are feeling the need for a healthy feed!

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Frutalmeidas | Restaurants (Fruit & salad) | Lunch € 10
Rua Pedro Nunes Lisboa | Avenidas
Mon – Sat 08:00 – 20:00