Cheap eats in Lisbon under €10

The rules that keep the bill down

Three habits cut Lisbon food costs in half. First, eat at the counter, ao balcao, rather than at a table: the same espresso is €0.80 standing and €2.50 seated on a terrace, and many cafes legally charge different prices for each. Second, eat your main meal at lunch, when almost every neighbourhood restaurant runs a prato do dia at €8-11 including soup, bread, a main and a drink, then eat lightly at night. Third, decline the couvert unless you want it.

Geography does the rest. Anywhere with a menu translated into five languages and a man outside holding it is charging a premium for the address, and that describes most of Rua Augusta, the lower stretch of Rua das Portas de Santo Antão and the streets immediately below the castle. Walk five minutes uphill into Mouraria, west into Campo de Ourique or east into Arroios and the same food costs 40 percent less. In Alfama, aim for the streets above the tram route rather than on it.

Sandwiches: the bifana, prego and leitão

As Bifanas do Afonso, a hatch on Rua da Madalena near the cathedral, serves the city's benchmark bifana for around €3: pork loin stewed in garlic and white wine, in a crusty papo-seco, with mustard and piri-piri on the counter. Add an imperial for €1.50 and lunch costs under €5. It sells out, so go before 2pm. Casa das Bifanas on Praça da Figueira offers the seated version at similar prices and stays open longer.

O Trevo, on Praça Luís de Camões in Chiado, is a stand-up counter where the prego, a garlicky thin steak in a roll, costs about €4.50 and comes with a view of the square's chaos. Nova Pombalina on Rua do Comércio does the leitão sandwich, roast suckling pig with crackling, for roughly €4.50 to a queue of office workers between noon and 2pm. A Merendinha do Arco Bandeira, off Rua dos Sapateiros, is the old-school choice for a beer and a snack near Rossio.

Tascas doing the €9 lunch

The prato do dia is the backbone of cheap eating here. Zé dos Cornos, on Beco dos Surradores in Mouraria, serves grilled ribs, bacalhau and enormous plates to builders and locals for €8-12; go at noon or queue. Ze da Mouraria on Rua João do Outeiro is bigger, louder and equally generous, though portions for two are the norm. In Campo de Ourique and Estrela, the small restaurants along Rua Ferreira Borges and Rua Saraiva de Carvalho do the same at similar prices with less competition for tables.

What you get for the money is soup, usually caldo verde or a vegetable puree, bread, a main such as grilled dourada, bife à café or bacalhau com natas, a glass of house wine or a beer, and sometimes coffee. The dining rooms are strip-lit and papered with football scarves, the service is fast and unsentimental, and lunch is over in 40 minutes. Dinner at the same places costs more and the day menu disappears, so schedule accordingly.

Markets and food halls on a budget

Mercado de Arroios, near the metro station off Rua Ângela Pinto, is the cheapest good eating in central Lisbon: Nepalese, Bangladeshi, Chinese and Brazilian counters inside a working produce market, with full plates at €6-9. Mercado 31 de Janeiro near Saldanha has an upstairs canteen where a plate of the day runs €7-8 among office workers. Both operate weekday lunchtimes and both are considerably better value than the food hall at Cais do Sodré.

The Time Out Market can be done under €10, but only just: a Manteigaria nata at €1.40, a coffee, and one of the cheaper counters. Treat it as a snack stop rather than a meal. Mercado de Campo de Ourique sits in between, with plenty of counters at €8-12. For self-catering, Pingo Doce and Continente supermarkets sell decent bread, cheese, cured meat and a bottle of Alentejo red for a picnic totalling under €12 for two.

Mouraria, Intendente and the cheapest kitchens

Mouraria, the tangle of streets between Martim Moniz and the castle, is Lisbon's most diverse neighbourhood and its best value. Cantinho do Aziz on Rua de São Lourenço serves Mozambican curries and coconut-heavy stews at €10-14, and its lunch dishes come in under that. The Chinese, Nepalese and Indian restaurants around Rua do Benformoso and the Centro Comercial Mouraria run €6-9 plates. Portions are large, decor is nonexistent and the food is cooked by people feeding their own community.

Around Intendente and Anjos, the same pattern holds with more Brazilian and African options: feijoada, cachupa, grilled chicken with piri-piri. A whole frango no churrasco from a takeaway grill costs €8-10 and feeds two with chips. Both neighbourhoods are a five-to-ten minute walk from Martim Moniz on the green metro line, and both are perfectly fine by day, if scruffier at night. This is where staying in Alfama pays off: it is the closest cheap-eating district to the historic centre.

Breakfast, snacks and drinks

Breakfast is the easiest saving in Lisbon. Skip the hotel buffet at €12-18 and go to any pastelaria: a bica at €0.80-1, a pastel de nata at €1.30-1.60, or a torrada, thick toast drowning in butter, at €1.80. Total under €4. A galão in a tall glass is €1.60. Portuguese cafes serve this from 7am, and the good ones are full of people reading the paper rather than photographing the pastry.

For snacks, the salgados counter is universal: rissóis de camarão, croquetes, pastéis de bacalhau and pão com chouriço, all €1.20-2 each. Two or three plus a beer is a €6 meal. Drink imperials at €1.50-2.50 rather than cocktails at €10-12, buy wine by the jug in tascas at €6-9 a litre, and take a €1.50 ginjinha at the standing window on Largo de São Domingos instead of a nightcap in a rooftop bar. Supermarket beer for a miradouro sunset runs €1 a bottle.

Neighbourhood shortlist under €10

In Baixa and Chiado, stick to O Trevo, Nova Pombalina and the pastelarias on Rua da Conceição, and avoid anything on Rua Augusta with a photo menu. In Alfama, climb above the tram tracks: the small places on Rua dos Remédios and Rua de São Miguel still do €9-11 lunches for residents. In Cais do Sodré, Sol e Pesca on Rua Nova do Carvalho serves tinned fish with bread and wine, and a full plate with a glass lands around €9-12.

In Príncipe Real and Bairro Alto, prices climb, but the workers' restaurants on Rua da Escola Politécnica and the tascas on Travessa da Espera still do a €10 lunch. Campo de Ourique is the best all-round value district in the city. And if you are near the river, take the ferry to Cacilhas for €1.55 and eat grilled fish along Rua do Ginjal, where a plate with wine costs about what a starter costs in Chiado.