Every restaurant, beach, market and building the guides send you to, grouped by what it is. Nothing is on this list without a named, dated source somebody put their name to — the CMS will not publish it otherwise.
Walking and driving times are from Beach Family House, on Rua Brito Capelo in Matosinhos.
Tiago's other pick for a rainy day with children. SEA LIFE Porto is an aquarium at Castelo do Queijo, at the end of the seafront walk from Matosinhos, with Humboldt penguins, an underwater tunnel, daily feeding talks and a play area inside.
Tiago's pick for a rainy morning or afternoon with children in Porto — his is a Sunday morning. World of Discoveries, on Rua de Miragaia a few metres from the Douro, is an interactive museum about the Portuguese navigators, with a boat ride along a water channel through the routes they sailed.
Matosinhos's city beach is a wide Atlantic bay running the length of the town, with the marginal — the seafront promenade — along its whole length. Tiago's one instruction for it is the sunset: walk the marginal as the sun goes down into the sea, which he calls unmissable. In the morning, the same promenade is the way south to the Parque da Cidade.
The best bakery in Matosinhos, on Rua de Brito Capelo — Tiago's pick. Come for the croissants: they are what its regulars name ahead of the cakes, the pastries and the pastel de nata put together. It opens at 7h, seven days a week, and breakfast comes to somewhere between 1 and 5 €.
On Rua de Brito Capelo, and Tiago's answer for the best vegan food in Matosinhos. It is a working flower shop with a kitchen in it, which is why people write about the plants before they get to the food. Daytime only, 10h–19h, at 10–15 € a head.
Spaces is the coworking centre at Avenida Menéres 640, and Tiago's answer for anyone who has to work during a stay: buy a day pass and go. His words are amazing people in a jaw-dropping coworking space. A day pass is around €25, booked through the Spaces or Regus app; the centre is run by IWG, the Regus group, which also sells month memberships, private offices and meeting rooms.
The municipal market is a working fish market, and Tiago's advice is to go on a Saturday morning: that is when it is as alive as Matosinhos gets, and children love it. Fish on ice with the heads still on, fruit, flowers, and the trick worth knowing — buy your fish at a stall and one of the restaurants inside will grill it for you, for roughly €7 a head according to Guia Repsol.
Tiago's pick for Friday-afternoon drinks and something light to eat, with the family — his order is the pizza at Péco no Mercado. The Mercado da Foz, on Rua de Diu, is a local market of fruit and vegetable stalls, florists and casual places to eat.
Porto's city park is the largest urban park in the country: 83 hectares running from the end of Avenida da Boavista to the Atlantic, with 11 km of paths and lakes, designed by Sidónio Pardal and opened in 1993 and 2002. Tiago's way to do it is on foot in the morning, along the seafront from Matosinhos to the park's ocean end. Entry is free.
On Avenida Serpa Pinto, and the answer when you cannot face another grilled fish. Tiago is blunt that you cannot beat their vitela, and its regulars order the same thing: the roast veal first, the cabrito after it, both out of an oven rather than off a grill. The room is calm and nobody hurries you out of it.
On Avenida Menéres, and Tiago's call is not a small one: the best pad thai in Porto, in Matosinhos rather than the city. It is the plate people come for, with mango sticky rice — khao neeo mamuang — close behind. 15–20 € a head, and it is really for the fourth night of a trip, when another plate of grilled fish is not the answer.
On Avenida Serpa Pinto, and Tiago's pick for two specific jobs: a big table, and takeaway. It is a churrasqueira — charcoal-grilled chicken, picanha, espetada, bacalhau — and its listing confirms takeaway as a service, so a family of eight can eat in or carry dinner away. What people single out here is not a dish but the service.
Tiago's pick for lunch in Foz. BH Foz sits on Avenida do Brasil, by the sea, in a 1945 Modernist building by the architect Amoroso Lopes — once a service station, bar and ballroom, restored after thirty years empty. The kitchen is Mediterranean, with a children's menu; Tiago orders the sushi or the entrecôte on porcini and truffle risotto.
Tiago's other pick for lunch, near the Mercado da Foz. Treze %, on Rua da Cerca, has been run since 2013 by the brothers Miguel and Filipe, and cooks traditional Portuguese food; Tiago's order is the cabrito (kid goat).
Tiago's pick for the best francesinha in Porto — his words, not a critic's. Café Santiago, on Rua de Passos Manuel, was founded in 1959 and builds its francesinha from mortadela, fresh sausage, linguiça, steak and ham, under cheese, an egg and a sauce the family keeps to itself.
At number 321 on Rua Heróis de França, and the door Tiago actually eats at. His order is the filetes de pescada — hake fillets, fried, the plainest thing on a menu full of shellfish, and what he goes back for. The rest of the room is there for the sardines and the charcoal. It is also the only kitchen on this hub still serving dinner on a Sunday.
A bicycle shop and workshop built into the outside of the Mercado de Matosinhos, at Rua Álvaro Castelões 46A, and one of Tiago's favourite shops in town. It sells classic-looking city, folding, cargo, children's and electric bikes, with a workshop behind the counter. Miguel Barbot opened it in early 2012 with two friends, and his line is: we don't want to sell more; we want to sell better.
The house sits on Rua Brito Capelo, two streets back from the seafront.
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