Ryanair offers flights from 18,00 Euros from the Northern German city of Hamburg to the Portuguese cities of Porto and Lisbon. That’s a pretty good deal…
Want to know something else pretty cool? You don’t even have to leave Hamburg to experience a little bit of authentic Portugal. That’s right. Hamburg has it’s own Portugiesenviertel (Portuguese neighborhood) right in the heart of the city.
Development Of The Portugiesenviertel
Just next to the famous Landungsbrücken harbor area you will find the Portuguese Quarter, a small collection of streets around the Ditmar-Koel-Straße where Portuguese and Spanish immigrants have settled since the 1960s and 70s. As the neighborhood grew, the new residents brought some of (in my opinion) the best parts of their culture with them in the form of cafes, bars, restaurants and pastelerias.
Today, you will find a mix of southern European restaurants with the majority being Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.
How Authentic Is The Cuisine?
Some say that this neighborhood is the best place to get traditional dishes- tapas, fresh seafood and delicious wines from these countries in all of northern Europe!
I’ve visited Italy a few times, Portugal once and lived in Spain for a little over a year. With the experience I’ve gained into the traditional dishes of these cultures, I could confidently say that the food is very authentic, but with a little German influence (like that time I was served boiled potatoes with Calamari at one of the Spanish restaurants there).
More than the food, you could just get the vibe of the Mediterranean by walking through the neighborhood. Portuguese, Spanish and Italian are spoken in all of the restaurants (typically as the predominent language), people greet each other with kisses on the cheek and on warm days you can find guests lounging outside in chairs sipping on coffee (no filter coffee here) and chatting the afternoon away.
Restaurants of the Portugiesenviertel
Hamburg is famous for delicious and fresh seafood and the Portuguese Quarter is no exception- of course, with a little bit of a Mediterranean twist! The majority of the restaurants there specialize in seafood and you can find big, delicious plates to share at almost all of them. One of my favorite places for this is O Pescador, which has a special plate full of shrimp, lobster, fish, calamari and other delicious seafood!
My favorite of all the restaurants, not only in the Portuguese Quarter but in all of Hamburg is Luigi’s, a lively Italian place where you feel like you’ve just entered an exciting private party right as you enter the door.
The pizza is inexpensive, huge and super good. The salads are fresh and at the end of the meal they give you a bottle of digestif to make sure you’re visit ends on a great note. Just be wary that this place is packed almost every night so expect to wait a while- not to fear, you get a free glass of Prosecco to hold you over while you wait!
