Santos Madragoa
Walk down the hill and explore Santos and neighbouring Madragoa, where numerous new businesses and cultural spaces such as museums and contemporary art galleries pop up every week.
EAT
Fauna & Flora serves breakfast, lunch and brunch à la carte – and brinner (following the new “breakfast at dinner” trend).
From 10am to 6pm, you can enjoy bowls of yoghurt with homemade granola and seasonal fruit (€5.50), acai and banana bowls (€9.50) and smoothie bowls with berries or a detox version (€7.50) The pancakes are the star of the menu: thick and fluffy and served all day. There are various options: oat and banana with Greek yoghurt and homemade seasonal fruit compote (€7), red berries with dolce de leche (€8) and a savoury version combining crispy bacon, fried egg, maple syrup and caramelised onion (€8). → Rua da Esperança, 33. +351 961 645 040. Every day 9am-7pm.
DRINK
The inspiration comes from the Steven Spielberg’s film Catch Me If You Can, starring Leonardo
DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. The colours are Pan Am’s, the view is a lovely panorama on the banks of the Tagus and the menu is a ticket to a smooth flight. The menu offers dishes like tuna tartare with avocado and oyster sauce (€12), a cured sausage board (€13), duck rice (€19), grilled octopus with roast potatoes, vegetables and herbinfused olive oil (€22), fresh fried cuttlefish, nero di seppia mayonnaise and citrus sauce (€10) and a steak roll in bolo do caco bread (€12). Desserts include French toast bolo do caco with wild fruits, Chantilly cream, honey (€5) and moelleux with crumble, a chocolate sphere and strawberry ice cream (€6). On Friday and Saturday nights there are DJs and the tables can be cleared away for dancing. On Sundays, there is live music ranging from jazz to samba. → Jardim 9 de Abril. +351 213 963 668. Sun-Thu 12.30pm-1am, Fri-Sat 12.30pm-2am.
SHOP
In 2005, it was baptised
Santos Design District: the neighbourhood is a home decor paradise. Paris:Sete has lived there since 1985 and offers design classics like Eames chairs, Pixie tables or E27 lamps (Largo Vitorino Damásio, 2A. +351 213 933 170. Mon-Fri 10am-7pm, Sat 11am-2pm & 3-pm-5pm). Mustique (Rua de Santoso-Velho, 106. +351 910 147 479. Mon-Fri 11pm-7pm and Sat-Sun 10am-7pm) was brought into the world in 2018 by Vera Caldeira and Pedro Ferraz. It offers a relaxed, genderneutral brand focusing on shirts, which they came up with after travelling round Asia in search of inspiration. Mustique has limited editions made in Portugal and now boasts two stores in Lisbon, one of which is in Santos. It has broadened its range to include trousers, jumpers, tops and shorts, all in the best of taste.
DO
It isn’t as big as the Louvre, in Paris, or Museu do Prado, in Madrid, but much like these two, you can’t explore Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in a day. Housing the highest number of national treasures and reference works of all Portuguese museums, the collection encompasses painting, sculpture, drawing, jewellery, furniture, Asian and African art, which amount to about 40 thousand pieces from the 12th to the 19th century. Painéis de São Vicente, by Nuno Gonçalves, or Tentações de Santo Antão, by Hieronymus Bosch, are two prominent examples. → Rua das Janelas Verdes, 17. +351 21 391 2800. Tue-Sun 10am-6pm.
A BIT OF HISTORY AGAIN
Life in Convento das Bernardas, on Travessa dos Inglesinhos, has been quite the adventure. Founded in 1653, it was practically destroyed by the earthquake. It was later rebuilt, welcoming back nuns, but also schools and theatres. Currently, it houses the restaurant A Travessa (Travessa do Convento das Bernardas, 12.
+351 213 902 034. Mon-Sat 7.30pmmidnight) and Museu da Marioneta (Rua da Esperança, 146. +351 213 942 810. Tue-Sun 10am-6pm), both worth visiting.