CENTRAL PORTUGAL
Besides its immense beauty, the central region of Portugal is one of the most gastronomically varied parts of the country, specialising in local delicacies such as eel stew and all manner of roast meats and shellfish.
Most of the main national Portuguese dishes can be found in the capital Lisbon, where an abundance of restaurants serve up the best in regional cuisine, such as tasty fish soups, local seafood, sole, boiled hake, crab meat, liver, partridge and beef steaks served in a tangy onion sauce.
Visitors to the ancient university city of Coimbra should taste the chanfana, a thick casserole of kid or lamb meat stewed in red wine, plus the local cakes known as Santa Claras.
The region's most famous dish is arguably leitão, roast sucking pig from the village of Mealhada, while fresh trout is a local delicacy in Covilhã, a picturesque town in the Serra da Estrela mountains also known for its rich sheep's cheese called queijo da serra. The coastal resort of Nazaré is most notably for its fish stew, known in Portuguese as caldeirada.
Tartlets such as pasteis de nata epitomize the region's wide variety of cakes, most of which are based on egg yolks, almonds and spices. Sintra's little cheese cakes called queijadas are can be bought hot from the local bakers.