The era of Portugal’s seafaring might was so long ago, it seems almost like a myth – one still patriotically related by locals today. Gastronomic evidence of the country’s imperial past remains, however, particularly in Lisbon, where Angolan, Brazilian and Goan eateries can be found among the many other restaurants serving non-Portuguese food. Yet, despite Macau being under Portuguese control for around four centuries, passing into Chinese administration only in 1999, Macanese cuisine is still a mystery. Lisbon has yet to see even one Macanese restaurant open. There is a place here, however, to eat food from Macau: a cultural association in between Alvalade and Areeiro on a main road that leads to the airport, far from Lisbon’s center.

The small, spicy piripiri, or African bird’s eye chili, is one of Portuguese cuisine’s most unexpected ingredients, one that has travelled thousands of miles across many continents to find its place there. When the Portuguese began navigating around the globe as early as the 15th century, spices like black pepper and cinnamon became some of the most important and expensive goods on the market. Piripiri didn’t reach quite the same renown, but they have influenced many cuisines in their travels East. Initially they were taken from Brazil to Africa, where they thrived. After Vasco da Gama established the maritime route to India, the Portuguese introduced the peppers to Asia, namely India, Thailand and Malaysia.

This exquisite 24 and 40 month jamón ibérico from the Alentejo region of Portugal can be enjoyed on our Lisbon tour. Thanks to Rick Poon for the appetizing photo.

In the heart of Alfama’s historic flea market is a surprise: Lisbon has a small restaurant dedicated entirely to mushrooms. Located inside the charming old market building from where there is an excellent view over the Tagus river, Santa Clara dos Cogumelos (Saint Clara of Mushrooms) is a very peculiar eatery: from starter to finish, including desserts, are unexpected combinations of shiitake, oyster, porcini, black trumpets or truffles, all cooked using a variety of techniques.

Lisboetas can’t get enough of fish and seafood, and the annual Peixe em Lisboa festival celebrates that love with an abundance of food-centric activities. The main event every year finds a handful of Lisbon’s top restaurants competing against each other to see who can create the top fish dish. There is also a food market with some 70 displays and daily events and workshops. It’s a chance to taste some sublime culinary creations and to meet creative local chefs and small-scale food producers from different regions.

Cervejaria Ramiro is the undisputed temple of seafood in central Lisbon. The 50-year-old business represents an old-school type of eatery: a beer hall where the seafood is fresh and cheap, with a choice from the daily menu or directly from the large aquariums that look out to the street. Taking up two floors of a late-Art Nouveau building on Avenida Almirante Reis, Cervejaria Ramiro is perpetually crowded. The clientele has not been affected by the recent urban regeneration of the area, which is turning the degraded Intendente neighbourhood, long affected by social exclusion, into a fashionable district. In fact, the restaurant was already popular in the 1970s, when eating seafood was new to the capital.

It’s a buzzing Thursday night at Associação Renovar a Mouraria (ARM), a one-room bar and eatery found in a nook at the top of some ancient stone steps leading up from Rua da Madalena. Dani, a local tattooist born in Java, is cooking for around 35 people as part of the weekly Jantar Cruzado (“dinner crossing”), an initiative aimed to improve social inclusion in this old part of town through the simple act of making food.

Like many other cities in Europe, Lisbon’s burger trend has been growing strong, with gourmet versions and strange national adaptations overtaking the capital. But the bifana, Portugal’s quintessential hot sandwich, will always trump any trend for locals who want quick nourishment. Composed of a thin pork filet cooked in a sauce made from white wine, garlic, bay leaves, lemon and lard, the bifana is an irreplaceable cultural habit.

Every late morning from the ground floor of a typical Lisbon building, the façade of which displays a tile-painted Madonna, a hunger-inducing scent pervades the street. Dhaka Restaurante is one of many canteens in the Mouraria neighborhood preparing its lunchtime curry. Along Rua Benformoso, among the small shops selling jewelry, trinkets and Chinese-made goods, are several restaurants that have fed the local community from the Indian subcontinent for years. Today, however, they aren’t just cooking for them. Due to a rapid process of urban transformation, mainly thanks to tourism and interested investors, more and more people from Lisbon and further afield are passing through this winding thoroughfare looking for alternative flavors.

Beneath modern Lisbon lies a complex network of galleries belonging to the city’s 18th-century aqueduct, a monumental structure that resisted the 1755 earthquake that devastated much of the capital. The aqueduct’s 58 km of tunnels and underground channels distributed water to 33 chafarizes (fountains) – often ornamental – to supply the city with drinking water. One of them, located along the steep steps connecting the Avenida and Príncipe Real neighborhoods, now houses Chafariz do Vinho, the Portuguese capital’s oldest enoteca, or wine bar.

Palanca Gigante is an Angolan tasca in multicultural Mouraria, Lisbon’s medieval downtown district. The restaurant is named after a critically endangered species of antelope (the palanca negra gigante, or giant sable antelope) that was adopted as an Angolan national symbol after that country’s independence from Portugal in 1975. Though regular Portuguese tascas – no-frills eateries – in Lisbon are far less endangered, it is harder to find authentic food from Portugal’s former colonies at such approachable prices in the city center.

Offering some of the world’s purest, most passionately produced chocolate, along with some of the best coffee in Lisbon, Bettina & Niccolò Corallo on Rua da Escola Politécnica in the Príncipe Real neighborhood has changed the tastes and habits of many locals. There’s no milk chocolate available at this family-run shop, only dark chocolate. And yet Portuguese chocolate lovers – who have a notorious sweet tooth – will swoon when one mentions Corallo’s products. As for the coffee, area residents now wait until 10 a.m., when the café opens, to have their morning brew here.

Peixnhos da horta is translated as little fish from the garden; they are actually deep fried green bean tempura and are sampled on our Lisbon Awakens walk. It is believed that tempura was actually introduced to Japan by the Portugese Jesuit missionaries.

Lisbon seems to be getting its groove back. Or at least, more people are taking notice of this city’s unique character and clearly taking to it. Recently, Vogue and The New York Times profiled the Intendente district, an up-and-coming neighborhood in the city center; Monocle magazine held its first “Quality of Life” conference in Lisbon; and many friends of ours, from Istanbul to San Francisco, are sharing beautiful photos of their latest trip to the city. Oddly, in a city on the upswing with such a rich culinary heritage, we found there was little storytelling on the subject of food and how it impacts Lisbon’s urban culture, be it in print, on the Web or on the ground (as in a tour or other guided experience).

A particularly eye-catching landmark in Lisbon’s Alfama district is the Casa dos Bicos (“House of the Spikes”), a 16th-century palace – once home to the Portuguese viceroy of India, and now housing the José Saramago Foundation – that has a bizarre façade of spiked stones and eclectic doors and windows. Just next to it is Reviravolta, a modest neighborhood tasca that serves up a dish with similarly iconic status: cozido a Portuguesa. One of the most traditional Portuguese meals, cozido has humble origins; first invented in the interior Beira region, it was a dish to use up all the week’s lunch leftovers. It consists of a mixture of several kinds of meat, including chicken, pork ribs, pork belly, pig’s ear, beef shank and assorted offal, complemented by different smoked sausages: chouriço, fat and sweet paprika, blood sausage and farinheira – the latter a Jewish invention of wheat flour, paprika and pepper, nowadays mixed with pork fat. Cozido is accompanied by boiled vegetables such as beans, potatoes, cabbage, turnip greens and rice. All of that, on just one plate.