We had just checked into our hotel and walked out to the main square in Braga, Praça da República, which is essentially a long and narrow park with a large fountain on one end of it.

Next to that fountain, you find a historic restaurant called Café Vianna, and on a chilly evening in late winter, they had fire features and blankets warming the guests sitting under the large stone arches of the portico. We gathered at a table right next to one of those heaters.

Shortly after we received our drinks, a heater on the other side of the patio started smoking. It actually smelled wood-burning, to the point where I did a double-take to see if the one close to us was burning wood, too. It wasn't, of course. There was no smoke. But on the other side, a lady approached and pulled the grating off, only to find something lodged in there, creating all the smoke.

Next, she came over to our heater to check it. Despite the fact that she was dressed to the nines and had a very nice wool coat on that didn't resemble any sort of restaurant uniform, I assumed she worked there, which, it turns out, she kind of did.

Her name was Andrea. Her father had been one of the café's owners, but he had recently passed away. Still, she spent a lot of time at Café Vianna, where she likes to meet and talk to customers. We told her that we lived in Lisbon. She was extremely interested in our impressions of Portugal, and she said that while it is always tough to be away from family, you will love your life here because the lifestyle is so much better suited for your immediate family. You will have all these opportunities for travel and adventures, and your son will be so much better for it in the long run. It's safe, especially here in Braga, and the people are so warm. We have some of the best landmarks in the country here, and one of the world's top nanotech facilities is located just outside of town. And the food, my god, the food, is clearly the best in Portugal. You just can't eat in this country like you can in the north. And speaking of which, she said after about an hour and a half of conversation—yes, she LOVED to talk—where are you going to dinner tonight?

"We don't know. We have a reservation for tomorrow but not for tonight."

"And you want good Portuguese food?"

"Yes."

"And you like wine?"

"Of course, we live in Portugal."

"Then I will call Bruno. You must meet Bruno."

Twenty minutes later (she spent a fair amount of time talking to Bruno, too, before getting to the reservation part), we were booked for an 8:30 dinner at Trapeza. You will love him, she said. He's very knowledgeable about wine. He used to work in the Algarve working for Michelin-caliber chefs, and now he's back in Braga opening his own place. You will love it. Very traditional.

So that's where we went.

About 15 minutes outside of town in an Uber, we arrived at a very strange location, though, which was in a strip mall, about as close to a strip mall as you will find in Portugal, and instantly my guard went up. This is where she sent us? All the way out here? And when we walked in the door a few minutes late, Bruno met us at the door in what was an empty restaurant. We were the only ones there.

He seemed very kind, though, showed us to our table, and handed us a couple of iPads with menus loaded in English. The dishes all looked great. He described them in great detail. And then he left us to discuss which options we wanted—and to talk about their prices.

Oh. My. God.

Each main was like 40–45 euros. There are some places in Portugal where you might expect to pay that—like in those places with the Michelin stars on the door—but in a strip mall outside of Braga? No. There's no way beef cheeks are 45 euros. But then again, the menu was in English, so I did what any skeptical American who has lived in Portugal for two and a half years would do. I asked for the menu in Portuguese.

I wanted to know if there were "two menus," so to speak. But Bruno said that they didn't have a Portuguese menu, not tonight, and then he suggested the two most expensive mains on the list, along with two starters that Alli and I had picked. He asked if we wanted to pair wines with the dishes, which we did, and then he walked away with our order, leaving our table shocked before Sebastian broke the silence.

"Dad, are we getting screwed here? Is this a scam?"

He said what Alli and I were both certainly thinking ourselves. It all seemed so clear. We met a woman at a café who was so overly nice she couldn't have been that nice in reality. She was working with or was friends with this chef and saw an opportunity to make a little extra money off these unsuspecting Americans who, even though they live in Portugal, are still tourists at heart. Get them into the restaurant. Remove the Portuguese menu. Show them a new menu on an iPad. And it's a nice win for the house. I started doing the math in my head. Easily a 200+ euro meal on the way. Now, I know this might sound like a standard Saturday for some people, but in Portugal, that is obscene. I was just hoping the food would be good.

"I don't know, buddy. I don't know. It's certainly possible, but there's nothing we can do about it now, so we're just going to go with it."

And at that point, I did. I just gave in. And the reality is, we got off to a great start with some amazing sautéed shrimp and a baked Camembert in phyllo dough paired with a Vinho Verde that he explained in detail. It was made of loureiro, which means laurel, and is typically a more delicate grape than the other famous Vinho Verde varietal, alvarinho.

Next, he brought us the mains. Beef cheeks and then an amazing Moroccan-inspired dish served in a tajine. Both were absolutely phenomenal and in MASSIVE portions. For this course, we had another amazing wine from the Setúbal region, a Palmela DOC made of only castelão. I told him it's been hard for me to find single-varietal reds, and then he said he thought I'd enjoy this one. And I did. I told him that it was, in fact, one of my favorite wines I've had since living here.

We had a great dessert with a dessert wine pairing. Then coffee. And all along the way, great pockets of conversation with Bruno. At this point, the meal had been so enjoyable, and I had consumed enough wine,  that I was resigned to paying American prices to compensate for my initial American perspective of being scammed.

And then the bill came.

As I said, it should easily have been over 200 euros based on the prices he had listed on the English-only menu, but when we looked closer, it wasn't even 100. This was clearly Michelin-guide quality cooking, and the wine service was fantastic. But the price of the bill did not match the prices on the menu, and no, we were clearly not getting scammed.

So what actually happened?

When you approach a situation through the lens of your own cultural norms, things can seem conspiratorial, and I'll be the first to admit that I still carry some New York City skepticism from time to time. But this is not what happened. In reality, it went down more like this:

It was the off-season. There was a high probability that Bruno planned to chill at home on a Thursday evening and spend time with his kids. His friend Andrea called to catch up, which they did, and at the end of that conversation, she said she's sending some customers his way. He decided that was okay, and literally came to the restaurant to open it for us. He put together a quick menu and, because Andrea had told him we were Americans, drafted it in English only. The prices? They had to be just a guideline based on the number of people at the table and were not to be taken literally.

We were blown away as we began to realize how and why the whole night had come together as it did. We were humbled by the unbelievable kindness and hospitality of both Andrea and Bruno, who went out of their way to help us have an amazing, authentic Portuguese experience—one that I will never, ever forget.

Then, as if it couldn't get any better, as we were leaving one of the most memorable meals I've had in this amazing country, Bruno walked up to me to shake my hand. He gave me his card and said to reach out any time I had questions about wine. And then he handed me a gift—a bottle of the same Palmela DOC wine that I told him I loved so much.

"I hope you enjoy your stay in Braga," he said.

She Said:

Have I mentioned how much I love Sebastian’s half-term breaks? Winter and spring holiday breaks are great too, but there’s something especially fun about these sneaky mid-trimester weeks; they’re perfect for quick getaways. This February, we decided to stay in Portugal and finally explore a few places that had been on our list for a while… all by train. We headed north, kicking things off in Aveiro, often called the “Venice of Portugal.”

We arrived right in the middle of Carnaval, and after Chad read about a nearby town called Ovar being known for its floats, we jumped on a local train (only about 30 minutes away) to check it out. The floats were provocative, funny, and impressively elaborate, and the people dancing and singing alongside them were clearly all in. I did feel for the women in heels though… by the time they reached where we were standing, the limp was real. Sebastian, however, was living his best life with cotton candy in hand. After we got our fill of float-watching, we realized there wasn’t much else to see, so we headed back to Aveiro.

Aveiro itself was such an enjoyable little city, especially during the off-season, when the crowds were nowhere to be found. But it wasn’t hard to imagine how packed it must get in the summer months.

As usual, we set off on a self-guided walking tour to get a feel for the city, and it took Sebastian all of one hour to track down a bookstore. Still dealing with an abundant amount of winter rain, the next day we decided to check out a recommended local maritime museum dedicated to Portugal’s most beloved dish, salted cod (bacalhau). For the first time, I saw live bacalhau swimming in a tank, an aquarium full of codfish! They looked nothing like the dried, triangular version I’m used to seeing (and smelling) at the grocery store!

We took a gondola ride through the canals, complete with our own personal guide who shared local stories, history, and debunked a few myths like the ribbon flags tied to the bridges that were actually not put there by local graduating students (like ChatGPT led us to believe), rather placed there by local and visiting lovers like, similar to the many locks we’ve seen in other cities adorning walking bridges.

We’d heard so much about the food in northern Portugal, and it absolutely lived up to the hype. Aveiro was our first stop in this discovery, and there was a lot more to come!

On our last morning in Aveiro, we headed out to Costa Nova for some beautiful coastal views and to see the famous striped houses. Once used by fishermen, they are now used as vacation homes, but they’re still fascinating to look at and worth the trip. And while I’ll still happily eat a pastel de nata here and there in Lisbon, the famous ovos moles pastries of Aveiro were not for me. Way too sweet.

Next stop: Braga. I had heard a lot about Braga during the time we’ve lived in Lisbon, especially as a popular expat destination, but we hadn’t made it there yet. To me, it almost felt like Lisbon 2.0 in some ways (though similar to Porto, if you ask anyone from there, they’ll tell you it’s 1.0). Either way, it ended up being another foodie highlight, but this time it happened to be because of the people we met along the way.

Enter Andréa, the owner of a bar we stopped into for a quick drink, who struck up a conversation with us on her way out, one that quickly turned into two hours together. Before we parted, she had called her friend Bruno to let him know we were coming for dinner, insisting we absolutely could not miss his restaurant in Braga (all in response to my go-to question when visiting a new city: “Where do you eat?”).

What followed was one of those unforgettable travel moments. When we arrived at the restaurant just outside of town, it was only the three of us and Bruno, who welcomed us like old friends. At first, we assumed we were simply early, and that explained the empty dining room. Then we started to second-guess things a bit. The prices seemed high, and the menu had supposedly been translated into English “just before we arrived.” Did we get scammed?

But then the food started coming.

And it was incredible, some of the best we’ve had anywhere in Portugal. The wine was delicious, with a mocktail for Seb, and Bruno ended up spending much of the evening with us, chatting about food, wine, and everything in between. In the end, the prices were not what we had feared at all, they were fair and reasonable. And it seems Bruno either opened up or stayed open on a rainy mid-weekday, just for us! The whole experience became a meaningful reminder to me to push past initial assumptions or perceptions and trust that people can be genuinely kind and don’t always have an agenda or poor intentions.

Chad will probably give this dinner the full blog treatment it deserves, so I’ll leave it at that.

The next day, we hit one of Braga’s main highlights, Bom Jesus do Monte, known for its dramatic baroque staircase, panoramic views (of course), and a historic water-powered funicular that’s been running since the 1800s. We took the funicular up and explored the beautiful grounds and surrounding park filled with fountains and verandas and huge, gorgeous trees. We wandered through the chapel quickly before beginning our descent down the “staircase”, stopping every few switchbacks to admire the architecture, sculptures, and fountains, and to take in the views, both up towards the chapel and out towards the horizon, and our planning was just right to time it with a sunset.

From Braga, we took a day trip to Guimarães, often referred to as the birthplace of Portugal, as it was home to the country’s first king. It’s another UNESCO World Heritage site, but to me, it just felt like a really nice, easygoing town, complete with the obligatory European castle and palace, both of which we explored. At this point, I figure we’ve seen so many that we’re practically royalty ourselves. We had lunch, wandered a bit more, and then made our way back to Braga for our final night.

Worth mentioning, our hotel in Braga was a destination in itself. Vila Galé is a restored historic building that once served as a hospital, originally established in the 1500s on the site of an old Templar convent. While it was a bit kid-heavy at times and the rooms felt a little, well, 1500s-esque, the cool factor of the building’s history definitely wasn’t lost on me. And neither was the fantastic buffet breakfast that Sebastian happily enjoyed for three mornings!

Final thoughts: another great trip in the books. Castles, palaces, funiculars, bustling squares, that perfect mix of old and new stuff, and of course, lots of amazing food. But more than anything, good family time. We even raised a toast with vodka and limes to honor my dad, one year after losing him, in our 15th-century convent hotel bar.

I’d say he was definitely laughing his ass off at that one.

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