Portuguese Luxembourg: the food of the country's largest foreign community

The Portuguese community is the largest foreign nationality in Luxembourg and has been for decades, arriving from the 1960s onward and now in its third and fourth generation here. The food that came with it is not a niche cuisine in this country; it is part of the ordinary fabric, and the restaurants, grocers and pastelarias serving it offer the best combination of quality and price anywhere in Luxembourg. A very large number of residents eat Portuguese food weekly without thinking of it as anything other than lunch.

What to order

Frango no churrasco

Grilled chicken with piri-piri, usually with chips and rice, and the dish that most people start with. It is cooked over charcoal, it is cheap, and the good places sell out. Takeaway on a Sunday is a Luxembourg institution.

Bacalhau

Salt cod, prepared in a great many ways: à brás with egg and potato, com natas baked with cream, or grilled with olive oil and garlic. It is the national dish of Portugal and there is a version on every menu.

Grilled fish

Sardines in season, dourada and robalo grilled whole with olive oil and salt. Simple and very good, and considerably cheaper than the equivalent in a French restaurant.

Meat

• Bifana, a marinated pork sandwich, eaten standing up.
• Francesinha, the Porto sandwich with sauce and cheese, which is an event rather than a lunch.
• Cozido, the boiled meat and vegetable dish, on set days in traditional places.
• Picanha and grilled meats, often shared.

Pastry and drink

• Pastel de nata, warm, with cinnamon.
• Bolo de arroz, and the wider counter of sweet things.
• Vinho verde, light and slightly sparkling, and the correct thing with grilled fish.
• Portuguese reds from the Douro and Alentejo, which represent extraordinary value and are widely available in the grocers.
• Super Bock and Sagres, the beers, cold and cheap.

Where to find it

• Bonnevoie is the heart of it, with restaurants, cafés, grocers, butchers and pastelarias concentrated around the Rue de Bonnevoie and the surrounding streets.
• The Gare district carries a substantial number, particularly toward the Bonnevoie side.
• Hollerich and the southern communes have their own clusters.
• The south of the country, around Esch and Differdange, has the largest Portuguese population in the country and the food follows.
• Almost every commune has at least one Portuguese café, which in a village is frequently the only place open on a Sunday.

The signal to look for is a room full of people speaking Portuguese and a television showing football. Those places are cooking for their own community and they are the ones to eat in.

The grocers

The Portuguese grocers are worth a separate mention because they are among the best food shops in the country for anyone who cooks.

• Salt cod, in whole sides, which the shop will cut for you.
• Charcuterie: chouriço, presunto, morcela.
• Cheese, particularly the sheep's milk cheeses from Serra da Estrela.
• Olive oil, wine and tinned fish at prices well below the supermarket.
• Fresh produce, frequently better and cheaper than the chains.
• Bread, baked on site in many of them.

The practical notes

• Portions are large. A main course is frequently enough for two people, and asking for one to share is normal.
• The couvert, the bread, olives and butter brought at the start, is charged for. You can decline it.
• Lunch is the best value. The set lunch in a Portuguese restaurant in Luxembourg is one of the cheapest proper meals in the country.
• Cash is still welcome in smaller places, though cards are now general.
• Sunday is when the grilled chicken places do most of their business, and ordering ahead is sensible.
• Book on a Saturday evening in the popular places, which fill with families.

Why this matters beyond dinner

The Portuguese presence is one of the reasons Bonnevoie and the Gare district function as neighbourhoods in a way that some wealthier parts of the capital do not. There are shops that open, cafés with regulars, and a street life that exists because people live there rather than work there.

For a household deciding between districts, that is a real difference and it is not visible in a price per square metre. It is one of the reasons we recommend Bonnevoie to people who arrive asking for Limpertsberg.

The community behind the food

Understanding why the Portuguese presence is so substantial makes sense of what you see on the street, and it is a piece of Luxembourg history worth knowing.

• Migration began in the 1960s, when Luxembourg needed labour for construction and industry and signed recruitment arrangements with Portugal.
• It never stopped, and the community is now in its third and fourth generation, with a substantial number holding Luxembourgish nationality.
• It is concentrated in Bonnevoie, the Gare district, Hollerich and the southern industrial towns, which is why the food is too.
• Portuguese is widely spoken in these districts, alongside Luxembourgish, French and Portuguese-accented French.
• The associations, football clubs and churches are a visible part of communal life, and the annual festivals are open to everyone.

This is one of the reasons Luxembourg's value districts have more street life than its expensive ones. A community that has been somewhere for sixty years builds shops, clubs and cafés, and those are exactly the things that make a neighbourhood.

Three questions we are asked

Is Portuguese food in Luxembourg authentic?

It is cooked by and largely for a community that has been here for sixty years, which is about as authentic as diaspora food gets. It is not a version adapted for local tastes.

Where is the best grilled chicken?

The one nearest you that has a queue on Sunday. This is a category where the difference between the good and the excellent is small and the difference between a busy place and an empty one is large.

Do I need to speak Portuguese?

No. French works everywhere, and most places manage in English. Trying a few words of Portuguese is received exactly as you would expect.

Why this matters when you are choosing where to live

The districts with the best everyday food in Luxembourg are also, consistently, the ones offering the best value in housing. That is not a coincidence, and it is the single most useful thing we tell buyers who have only looked at the plateau.

One practical point on timing. Portuguese restaurants in Luxembourg keep longer hours than most, frequently serving into the afternoon and again in the evening, which makes them the reliable answer when you have missed the standard lunch window. On a Sunday, when a good deal of the country is closed, the Portuguese cafés and grilled chicken counters are often the only thing open in a village, and they are busy for exactly that reason.

The long-term test for why this matters beyond dinner is maintenance. For the question raised by “Why this matters beyond dinner”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages. It means pricing the effort honestly. That list can be surprisingly clarifying.

For the question raised by “Why this matters beyond dinner”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages.

Time is the hidden unit behind the community behind the food. For the question raised by “The community behind the food”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages.

A stronger reading of the practical notes starts by asking what would change for the resident on an ordinary weekday.