The Lisbon issue
Walking Arroios and Intendente in Lisbon
Walk Arroios and Intendente in Lisbon in order, past an 1865 tiled façade and an ex-voto shrine, stopping for cachupa and curry, ending at a kiosk miradouro.
By Robin AaltinkLisbon on foot, timed to the tram
Largo do Intendente was pedestrianised in 2012, and the café terraces along it now take the late-afternoon crowd. The corner building at number 25 is sheathed in figurative azulejos laid in 1865. Rua do Benformoso leaves the square and climbs past grocery shops and halal butchers.
Largo do Intendente and the tiled corner
Largo do Intendente Pina Manique (off Avenida Almirante Reis) is wide calçada paving between 19th-century tiled townhouses, with café terraces down both sides and old tram tracks crossing one end. The metro entrance is on the corner, which makes this the easiest place to begin.
The square had decades of notoriety behind it before it was paved over for walkers, and it is still where the area's terrace life collects in the hour before dinner. You cannot book a table and you do not need to. Sit outside and watch which way people are heading, because every street named below runs off this square or off the avenue beside it.
Fábrica Viúva Lamego building (Largo do Intendente 25) wraps a whole corner in blue-and-ochre azulejos by Ferreira das Tabuletas, dated 1865, with allegorical female figures and lettering that spells out the tile factory's name. It is a listed monument. The historic shop inside closed in 2021, so the outside of the building is all there is to see.
Stand well back across the paving to take it in. The figures sit high on both faces of the corner, and from the pavement directly beneath them you see only the lower third of the scheme. The square is wide enough that a group can spread out and still get the same view.
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Free sights on Avenida Almirante Reis
Igreja de Nossa Senhora dos Anjos (Avenida Almirante Reis) looks like nothing from the street, a plain neoclassical shell finished in 1911. Inside there is 17th-century gilded baroque woodwork and 16th-century panel paintings, salvaged from the original church when it was demolished. It is the only old interior left in Arroios.
Entry is free. The doors open Tuesday to Saturday, 09:00 to 13:00 and 15:30 to 19:30, and on Sunday mornings and late afternoons. The nave is quiet in the first hour after opening. If a Mass is running, stay at the back and keep your voice down.
Campo dos Mártires da Pátria, also called Jardim Braancamp Freire, slopes uphill inside a ring of old medical faculty buildings. The bronze statue of Dr Sousa Martins stands buried under thousands of marble ex-voto plaques, wax limbs and burning candles, left for a 19th-century doctor the poor made into an unofficial saint. Nothing else in these streets is quite like it.
People still come to the shrine to pray and to leave things, so keep away from the base of the statue and read the plaques from the path. At one edge of the garden, AkaCorleone painted the basketball court in pink, yellow and blue. The park is open and free. The slope is gentle but constant, so walk it downhill from the top gate if your knees object.
The climb to Miradouro do Monte Agudo
Miradouro do Monte Agudo sits behind a school on the Anjos to Graça ridge, reached by a footpath between Rua Heliodoro Salgado and Rua Ilha do Príncipe. The approach is uphill the whole way and the viewpoint stays invisible until you are on it. This is the miradouro people from the neighbourhood use.
Pines and a pergola shade the terrace. Rooftops run down the line of Almirante Reis below you and the river closes the view. A green kiosk pours beer and makes toasties, open daily until 22:00, with enough benches that you will find a seat without hurrying anyone.
There are no reservations and no table service. Order at the hatch, carry it to a bench, and give yourself an hour before the light goes.
Books and talks on Rua de Arroios
Tigre de Papel (Rua de Arroios 25) has held the same narrow shopfront for 10 years and works as the de facto community hall for the area. New and second-hand Portuguese titles run floor to ceiling, and bargain crates sit out on the pavement. The aisle takes one person at a time.
Under the shop is a small basement auditorium with stacking chairs, which runs talks and launches most weeks. Check the programme before you come, even if you read no Portuguese, because the room tells you more about who lives in Arroios than any terrace will. Open Monday to Friday 10:00 to 20:00, Saturday until 18:00.
Shellfish at Cervejaria Ramiro
Cervejaria Ramiro (foot of Avenida Almirante Reis) is a bright tiled cervejaria on two floors, with paper-covered tables, bibs, shell-cracking mallets, tanks of live crab, and waiters in waistcoats carrying towers of tiger prawns past your head. It is the one international draw in the area, and it earns the attention. Finish with a prego sandwich after the shellfish, in that order.
Online booking caps at six to a table, and walk-ins take a numbered ticket at the door, so a party larger than six should turn up at 17:00 and wait together rather than split. There is a queue at every service, whenever you come. The kitchen closes on Mondays and for the whole of August. €€€.
Dinner around Mercado de Arroios
Taberna Os Papagaios (Rua Lucinda Simões) holds a corner by Mercado de Arroios, with an old tiled dado, a marble counter and the specials on a blackboard. Bread arrives every day from the bakery in the market across the road. Offal and bacalhau are there for the brave, and cabidela rice comes on Fridays.
It topped A Mensagem's list of Lisbon's 101 restaurants in 2025 and still feels like a room for the people who live on the street. No reservations are taken, and the tables go within minutes of the doors opening. Be outside at opening or eat late. €€.
Fox Coffee, O Rei da Cachupa (Rua António Pedro) does cachupa in five versions, one of them vegetarian, served in deep bowls of corn and beans under a fried egg and sausage. The room reads as a lounge-style café, with Cape Verdean flags and photographs of Sal island on the walls. If you eat one Lusophone plate in Arroios, eat this one.
It is casual and roomy, and it takes bookings by phone if you want a table held. On Friday and Saturday it stays open until 02:00, later than most of the eating here. €€.
Curry on Rua do Benformoso
Arroios is often called the city's most diverse quarter, and Rua do Benformoso is why. The street runs straight out of Intendente and climbs, long and narrow, between grocery shops and halal butchers, and it is known as Lisbon's Little Bangladesh.
Dhaka Restaurante (Rua do Benformoso 212) is a strip-lit canteen partway up, with Bengali signage outside and steel trays of curry behind glass. Long tables, no fuss, walk in and sit down. Curry and biryani run €8 to €15 a head, and the doors are open daily from 09:00 to 23:00. €.
Walk the street itself after you eat. The climb is steady and the shops either side stay busy into the evening.
Kiosk drinking in Jardim Constantino
Mustarda (Jardim Constantino) is a mustard-yellow kiosk in the middle of the garden, with a 60-seat terrace under the trees, string lights overhead, and DJ decks wedged in beside the serving hatch. Burgers are €7 to €8. Live sets and sport on a screen run on through the evening.
Music goes until 00:00. The garden fills from May to September, which is when to come, with skate ramps and a playground working away at the edges. €.
Taps and natural wine in Anjos
Dois Corvos Intendente Taproom (Rua dos Anjos 16B) is a stripped-back room of bare brick and pale wood, with 12 tap handles behind the bar, fridges of raven-labelled cans, and an open kitchen doing seafood snacks. Portugal's best-known craft brewery put its city-centre taproom on this street rather than a tourist one. Drink standing at the bar if the tables have gone.
Open Wednesday and Thursday 16:00 to 00:00, Friday and Saturday until 01:00, and closed Monday, Tuesday and Sunday. €€.
Rude (Rua de Macau, Anjos) occupies a 1940s delicatessen with the wooden shelving and the tiled counter left exactly as they were. The list runs to 40 Portuguese natural wines, low-intervention, poured alongside small plates of cured fish and cheese. Sit inside for the old fittings.
The room is small and works for four to six people, so call ahead if you are bringing more than that. Open daily, 18:00 to 01:00. €€.
The roof above Martim Moniz
TOPO Martim Moniz is a sixth-floor terrace on the roof of the Centro Comercial Martim Moniz, five minutes' walk from Largo do Intendente. You go up through a down-at-heel shopping centre and come out onto bare concrete and potted plants, with the cocktail bar outdoors and the floodlit walls of Castelo de São Jorge facing you across the square. The view over the parapet is the reason to make the climb.
It gets rammed after 21:00, so go up before that and take a spot at the rail. Open Sunday to Wednesday until 01:00, Thursday to Saturday until 02:00. €€.
Staying on the square
1908 Lisboa Hotel (Largo do Intendente 6) fills a restored Art Nouveau corner block built in 1908, with wrought-iron balconies, hand-painted elemental tiles and 36 rooms behind them. The building is a landmark on the square in its own right. Infame, the ground-floor restaurant and bar, spills onto the paving and seats non-residents, so you can eat there without a room key. Group and event bookings are taken. €€€.
Planning the days
Monday is the weak day here: the church, Ramiro and the taproom are all shut, and August takes Ramiro out entirely. Book Ramiro online for up to six or take a door ticket, phone Fox Coffee if you want a table held, call Rude for a party above six, and expect to walk in everywhere else.
See the Lisbon guide and the Lisbon hotel search.
Gallery
Arroios & Intendente in pictures
Arroios & Intendente — your questions
Do you need to book Cervejaria Ramiro?
Online booking caps at six people to a table. Walk-ins take a numbered ticket at the door, so a group of more than six should arrive at 17:00 and wait together. It closes Mondays and all of August.
Which day is worst for visiting Arroios and Intendente?
Monday. The Igreja de Nossa Senhora dos Anjos opens Tuesday to Saturday and on Sunday, Cervejaria Ramiro closes Mondays, and the Dois Corvos taproom closes Monday, Tuesday and Sunday.
Can you go inside the tiled Fábrica Viúva Lamego building?
No. The shop inside shut in 2021, so the azulejo façade at Largo do Intendente 25 is all there is to visit. Stand in the square to look at it or photograph it.
Where can a group of eight eat in the area?
Dhaka Restaurante on Rua do Benformoso has long tables, takes walk-ins and opens daily 09:00 to 23:00. For Fox Coffee, book a group by phone. Taberna Os Papagaios has no reservations, so get there at opening.
Where should you stay to be in Intendente rather than near it?
1908 Lisboa Hotel is on Largo do Intendente itself, a restored 1908 Art Nouveau corner block with 36 rooms. Its ground-floor restaurant and bar, Infame, seats non-residents.
