Gluten or lactose free? Vegetarian or Vegan? Some choices in Sintra!

Gluten free bread for breakfast

Many of our guests are still surprised when they order their breakfast and we ask if they prefer gluten or lactose free products - or if they want tomato to substitute the ham when they say they are vegetarian.  This is not common in Portugal.  Though the Portuguese bread is fantastic and cheeses are really tasty, unfortunately many places in Portugal  fail to recognize that there are increasingly many people with a condition that prevents them from enjoying these things, and thus would like an alternative. We seem to make an exception here, offering both lactose free and gluten free products in our breakfasts.

There is a similar situation with vegetarian food - if you want anything other than a salad, know that the Portuguese do have excellent soups, and often even the coffee shops have a soup of the day option. Many places in town offer an omelet or a pasta as a vegetarian option, but not so many where you can safely order your food if you are a vegan (butter and knorr cubes may be used in cooking). If you do identify with any of the above, here are two restaurant suggestions that you might want to consider in Sintra:

The Soul+Food garden viewed from the street

Soul+Food is a vegan restaurant close to the City Hall and the Station.  To enter, you walk down steps from the street level to a private garden one level below.  I recently ate there with Patricia, my colleague.  Neither one of us is a vegan, but we both enjoy vegetarian food.  And we certainly ejoyed what we were served at Soul+Food!  We ordered the daily special - and it was actually many specials together - a quiche, steamed vegetables, salad and brown rice with a tomato souce.  To accompany, we ordered the home-made ice tea with nice spices.  The food was tasty and filling - and plenty for a grown person.  We also tried the desserts  - fantastic vegan twist on a popular local dish, with condensed soy milk and gluten free cookies...  An important note: you can get a glutenfree option as well!

The delicious dish of the day at Soul+Food

The place is 'alternative' or non-traditional.  We ate in the garden, where there are various tables spread around in natural shade.  There are also a few different rooms inside, all very colorfully painted. On a positive note, the restaurant has a relaxed atmosphere.  On a not-so-positive note, the garden was not very well cared for, it had a bit of an abandoned look that needed more watering and lawn-mawing.  Food+Soul is open daily for lunch and weekend evenings for early dinner, closing at 9.  Now in the summertime, it is quite popular, and many of our clients have turned away after 7pm as they were running low on food.  

There is a large choice of
breads for your sanwich
at Café Saudade

The delicious pumpkin lentil soup

Close by is Café Saudade.  Its simple lunch menu is inventive and appealing.  Every day there is a special soup and a quiche, on the lunch menu there are many salads and sandwiches, including vegetarian sausage sandwiches.  The day Patricia and I went recently the soup was pumpkin-lentil soup - fantastic!  There is a wide variety of breads for the sandwich option.  The café is an old cheese-cake factory, beautifully restored and decorated.  They serve a large variety of teas, coffees and fresh juices, and is famous for its pastries as well.  Recommendable, for sure!  (There is more information on this café in a previous blog entry).

One last thing - Portugal and Sintra have fantastic pastries - each town has its own specialty, and Sintra has many!  This is good news for those of us who appreciate a coffee and a pastry every so often - and the excellent news are that there are several glutenfree options as well!  Here are a few from the pastry shop Piriquita - orange pudding, egg pudding and filled marengue.