Matosinhos

Matosinhos is where Porto goes to eat fish, a working port town just north of the city where the trawlers still land their catch each morning and the smoke from charcoal grills drifts down the side streets. Along Rua Heróis de França the marisqueiras line up almost shoulder to shoulder, their windows piled with goose barnacles, spider crab and whatever came off the boats that day. There is nothing precious about the ritual: you point at a fish, it goes on the grill outside, and it arrives whole with boiled potatoes and a wedge of lemon. This is the home of grilled sardines and robalo done over coals, eaten under fluorescent light at tables that have served the same families for decades.