The best restaurants at Mercado da Vila

Healthy, beautifully presented food made with fresh seasonal ingredients, local produce from responsible and sustainable sources, and options for different dietary needs. That is what you will find at Local – Your Local Healthy Kitchen. The menu includes vegetarian dishes such as organic tofu and vegetable red Thai curry, or a black bean burger with quinoa and guacamole, but there are also recipes with animal protein – several types of fish, prawns, octopus and free-range poultry. There are 12 different pokes on the menu, plus a DIY option with endless possible combinations. To finish, count on desserts with no refined sugar and artisanal ice creams.

Opened in 2014, Páteo do Petisco’s second home sits on the first floor of Mercado da Vila, with balconies on both sides – one facing in, the other out. Part of Grupo Páteo, it is a Portuguese, family-run and local project, known for its relaxed, good-humoured service and its talent for sharing-style petiscos. Expect traditional, comforting food – the kind that feeds the soul.

You’ll find Casa Viana at Cascais’s Mercado da Vila – a comfort-food spot where the dishes are home-style, hearty and quite literally cooked by a grandmother. Expect the very best of traditional cuisine from Brazil’s Northeast: think cured meats, prawns and cassava, alongside inventive Northeastern desserts and signature cocktails that are well worth a try. The menu is designed for sharing, and the whole setting feels warm and familiar, evoking the laid-back charm of a countryside fazenda.

Goose barnacles, clams, oysters, whelks, slipper lobsters, prawns, scarlet prawns, crab, baby clams and, because no self-respecting seafood restaurant should be without them, pregos. This restaurant, built into the fishmonger’s at Cascais market, works almost like a shopping trip: first, you choose the seafood you want, the quantity and how you want it cooked. Then you decide whether to eat it there or take it home. It has a younger sibling at Cascais Marina, with the same philosophy – and the same freshness.

Since 2016, Mercado da Vila de Cascais has had a traditional sushi restaurant where you can also try several fusion options. As well as sushi combinations and individual pieces ordered à la carte, it serves ramen, chicken satay, pad thai and other Asian specialities.

In the middle of Mercado da Vila, there is a spot that is both Roman and carioca: Pizza do Gagau. Created by Edgar Dieckmann – Gagau – in Rio de Janeiro, it began by selling frozen pizzas with thin, crisp bases, designed to combine quality, flavour and convenience. Made with 00 flour, 24-hour fermentation and a pre-baked base, the pizzas include classics as well as options with a Brazilian accent, such as calabresa with onion, chicken with catupiry and catuperoni, which brings together catupiry and pepperoni.