Prado Mercearia and its manager Carlos Duarte

2020 is the year many of us fall in love with cooking, or at least give ourselves delicious food at home. Although a trip to an oversized grocery store scares many of us, go to a small store nearby-where we might find a new, strong-tasting cheese or collect a bag of tomatoes suitable for August, not to mention Some interpersonal interactions with them made the owners-something worth looking forward to.

For many people, the love of the food market has not disappeared, even if we have more social life and restaurant dinner opportunities. When my international friends visited my adopted hometown of Lisbon again in the optimistic summer of 2021, I noticed that I was asked about the local market (mercarias in Portuguese) as often as I was asked about restaurants. 

At the same time, I started to receive opening announcements, listen to recommendations from local friends, and walked more and more of these interesting small shops. As the gift-giving season approaches, it seems it's time to look back. 

In recent months, Prado Mercearia, adjacent to chef António Galapito’s veritable Prado restaurant, has a reputation among local food lovers as a bar and bistro, invited by Galapito Rotate chef team supervision and promote a zero waste policy. But this is only a secondary purpose of its original purpose-to deliver the products of the best Portuguese producers directly to consumers. This includes fresh organic vegetables, long-fermented breads, small-batch cheeses and natural wines.

Mercearia Criativa-"Creative Food Store"-is a traditional grocery store offering exclusive Portuguese products, all prepared in a handmade, organic and creative way. Or as the owners say, they only sell what they like. Their favorite foods include marinated muxuma tuna (bacon of fish) from Vila Real Santo António, Algarve, oysters from Ria Formosa, sea urchins from Ericeira, and cakes from the Azores. They also provide meals and organize seminars on bread, wine and gardening. 

In this new market in the historical center of Lisbon, the owners hope to revive the spirit of the neighbourhood market that was once the cornerstone of the community. They invited Moisés Franco, a chef who worked with Portugal’s most famous chef José Avillez (including Belcanto with two Michelin stars) to prepare light meals and selected products for sale, including low-intervention wines, long-leaved breads, and small-batch cheeses. And almost homemade jam. 

In addition to all the novel markets, some long-standing classics in Lisbon continue to do what they do best. Manteigaria Silva first opened in the city’s historic downtown in 1890. At the time, butter ("manteiga" in Portuguese) was a luxury item, shipped from the Azores, and was the first product sold in the store. Now, the inventory has expanded to include dry cured ham, various sausages, canned fish from 100 producers, and cheese from all over the country. 

In the past few years, this shop has become a gathering place for food lovers nearby. They are committed to finding the most delicious things from rural producers and providing them to urban residents. (Before the second coronavirus lockdown, she created a farmers' market to help all producers that restaurant customers could not buy.) They met with manufacturers of all the products they sell, from cheese to cured meats to small batches Produced wine. 

This small shop is dedicated to providing organic and "delicious" food throughout the year, which has won my heart. (There is also a Portuguese word chosen for its name, which somehow means "with you" and "I can".) The owner, a Portuguese and an Italian, both grew up in a family with a backyard garden, but By then they met in London and they had missed the connection with fresh food. Therefore, they returned to Lisbon and opened a shop with the purpose of creating a cozy space where neighbors can find texture, color, smell and flavor from nature. 

The owner of D'Olivial, showing off some of their olive oil

As the name suggests, the main product of this small shop is olive oil, initially because the owners were tired of seeing Portugal's high-quality olive oil being overshadowed by products from neighboring Mediterranean countries. Now they source olive oil from all over Portugal, from the Algarve to Tras-os-Montes. They also sell a variety of household items such as handmade wooden spoons, cute handmade soaps and olive wood serving boards.