Lisbon, or: The City That Feeds You Before It Explains Itself
I arrived in Lisbon on a Tuesday morning having done, by my standards, a reasonable amount of research. I had a list. I had a neighbourhood map with small circles on it. I had three restaurant recommendations from people who had been recently and spoken about the place with the slightly faraway look of someone describing a dream they're not sure was a dream. By Tuesday evening I had lost the list, ignored the circles entirely, and eaten the best meal of my trip at a table I found by accident down a street I went down by mistake, in a restaurant with no written menu and a waiter who communicated the options through a combination of Portuguese, hand gestures, and what I can only describe as implication. I had the fish. Obviously I had the fish. Lisbon is one of those cities that resists the standard tourist logic. It does not present itself to you. It does not lead you helpfully from landmark to landmark with the cooperative attitude of a city that has thought carefully about vis...
