Eating Pizza in Portugal (and Amsterdam)

I hit up some delicious and unique pizzerias while I was in Europe.

Jul 19, 2024

You get to know a lot about a place through its food, so even though it might seem counterintuitive to travel halfway around the world just to eat the same thing I eat every single Friday night back home, I always make sure that visiting at least one pizza restaurant is built into my trips whenever I go somewhere new.

I learn something from every pizza place I go to, and I was fortunate enough to eat at some great ones while I was in Portugal and Amsterdam earlier this summer.

The first shop I visited was Pomodor, which is located in a beautiful beach town called Lagos that’s on the southern tip of Portugal in the Algarve region.

Lagos is a tourist heavy area (that seems to be especially packed full of Americans), and the majority of the foot traffic stays around their old town area, where most of the shopping and dining is. Pomodor is just outside old town, directly across from the Praia de Batata beach and next to the Ponta da Bandeira, which is a fort that was built in the 17th century to defend the city from pirates.

Pomodor is a newer restaurant, having only opened in December 2023, and while I was researching places to eat in Lagos something immediately jumped out at me:

A 4.9 on Google with 258 reviews in six months is fantastic no matter where you’re serving pizza at. Also, and this is a lesson I talked about the last time I ate a bunch of pizza in Europe, the further you can get away from the heavily saturated areas when you’re looking to eat, typically the better off you’ll be (which rang true for the majority of my trip).

Pomodor makes Neapolitan-style pizza, which is what the vast majority of Europe tends to serve outside of Italy. I figured I’d start the trip with a Margherita, minus the basil (not a fan).

You’ll notice immediately just how airy the cornicione is (those pockets!), and it never ceases to amaze me how delicate the dough is in top tier Neapolitan pizzerias. Another thing that I loved that Pomodor did, and this was my first time ever experiencing it, is that they gave you a pair of pizza scissors so that you could cut your pizza however your heart desired.

I’m also a big fan of the large pizza plates they typically serve on in Europe, and I have a feeling that one of these trips I’m going to fall madly in love with a specific one and spend a small fortune shipping it back home.

A few days later I made my way back up to Portugal’s capital city, Lisbon, and that’s where I visited my second pizzeria of the trip. You know when you find a special restaurant/bar/place that seems to be an organism in and of itself? Like it has its own special energy that seeps out in a way you can absolutely feel? I recognized that as soon as I got to Lupita.

Lupita is a teeny tiny shop in the Chiado neighborhood of Lisbon that serves naturally leavened pizzas and was named one of the Top 50 pizzarias in all of Europe. All the Google reviews warned me they’d be extremely busy, but I thought maybe I could sneak in by arriving just as they re-opened for dinner service (they close for three hours between lunch and dinner) since everything in Portugal happens much later than in the states. This is what was waiting for me as I walked up, however…

Part of the brilliance of Lupita though is that they do a few really clever things to help you during your wait. First, they’ll serve you whatever you’d like to drink while you’re standing in line (as you can see by the bottle in the hand of the young man in front of me). Second, and this is devious, they have a window that opens out into the street where they set their pizzas as they finish them with additional toppings and let them cool — and believe me when I say you can smell them from blocks away.

And lastly, and this might be my favorite part, when they add your name to the waitlist it’s literally written on a glass panel on the door so that you can check your status anytime you’d like (or the current length of the list before you attempt it) without bothering any of the staff as they dart around serving pizzas inside.

After waiting just over an hour, I finally got my table, but that’s when my real problem began — deciding on one pizza. Eventually I narrowed my choices down to two; the cogumelos (mozzarella, Taleggio, roasted mushrooms, and a white wine lemon cream sauce), or the carbonara (mozzarella, guanciale, black pepper, Grana Padano, and a pecorino cream with egg yolk). I’ve had carbonara pizza before so as difficult as it was the rarity of a white wine and lemon cream sauce is what ultimately swayed me.

The pizza came out in about ten minutes, as Lupita is a well oiled machine.

I tasted far more mushroom than cream sauce, but it honestly didn’t matter, the mushrooms were expertly cooked and rich enough in their own way. My favorite part of the meal though was yet to come. In addition to their pizza, Lupita also serves Basque Cheesecake, which is a style I had never had before.

The picture doesn’t even begin to do it justice. The cheesecake was light, airy, and ridiculously creamy inside, while the exterior was perfectly caramelized, giving it a brulee-like flavor. It was the best thing I had eaten on my trip at that point.

Finishing up was bittersweet. I knew it would be an incredibly long time before I’d be able to get back to Lupita again (if ever), but I was also so grateful for how much I enjoyed my meal. Smile because it happened, or whatever.

My itinerary for Lisbon the next day had me in an entirely different part of the city, but when the famous sandwich shop I planned to eat lunch at was suddenly closed for a few days for repairs, I ended up back near the water (and Lupita) much earlier than I anticipated. I initially walked back over just to get some better quality pictures, but when I saw they had an open table and no wait list, I jumped at the chance. And I’m so glad I did.

Lupita’s carbonara pizza is one of my favorite pizzas that I’ve maybe ever eaten. The base is almost as creamy as the cheesecake (in an entirely different way) but what absolutely makes the entire pizza is the guanciale — which is salt-cured pork cheek. The guanicale was sliced razor-thin, and it baked up super crispy on top of the pizza, so it tasted like the saltiest, lightest, most delicious pork rind you could ever imagine — which cut right through all the richness of the cheese and the egg yolk. It feels like fate sent me back to go and eat that pizza, so thank you to whatever deity decided to fuck with a sandwich shop and lead me there.

And of course I got another slice of cheesecake.

After Lisbon, I made a quick, 24 hour detour to an island called Madeira to watch an incredible sunrise (absolutely worth it) before heading up the Portuguese coast to its second-biggest city, Porto.

Set on the Douro River, Porto is known for it’s many incredible bridges, but primarily for being one of the biggest producers of port wine in the world. I stayed in the Cais da Ribeira neighborhood, which is right on the river, and one of the busiest areas in the entire city.

Just up the hill from me, and believe me, there are many significant hills to navigate in Porto, was the next pizzeria I stopped at — Slice of Porto.

Slice of Porto is an homage to the slice shops of New York, and was one of only four slice shops I saw during my entire trip (there was a Roman-style shop and two New York-ish shops in Libson).

The slices at Slice of Porto are significant, so they cut them in half once they’ve pulled them and reheated them for you. I ordered two slices; a pepperoni and a bacon.

I spent some time talking to one of the owners, and he told me they learned everything they knew about making pizza by watching all the episodes of The Pizza Show on YouTube over and over again. An incredible thing about pizza shops these days, no matter what part of the world you’re in, is just how often the entire endeavor began simply because someone decided they wanted to learn how to make pizza.

As for the slices themselves, they were solid. If you served them to me in some undisclosed neutral location and told me they were from New York, I would certainly believe you (though I would guess they probably came from somewhere closer to Times Square than, say, Brooklyn or Greenwich Village).

It was impossible not to walk away impressed, though. If you gave me a library of videos devoted to a specific Portuguese dish, one that I’d never actually tasted in its original form for myself mind you, and asked me to recreate it, I would absolutely fall on my face.

After saying adeus to Portugal, I flew to Amsterdam to spend a few days irritating its residents by stopping in front of them to take a picture of every single canal (it’s a ridiculously beautiful city, I’m sorry).

While Amsterdam is home to, um, all kinds of things, it’s also where the most heralded shop of all my pizza stops resided.

nNea is a world renowned, award-winning, pizzeria in Amsterdam West that’s so busy all their reservations are already taken for the remainder of 2024 (though they hold 25% of their tables open exclusively for walk-ins). They also have a separate shop immediately next door to the actual restaurant, where they offer a truncated menu of pizzas for carryout only.

nNea was named the top pizzeria in all the Netherlands, the No. 8 pizzeria in Europe, and the No. 48 pizzeria in the entire world by 50 Top Pizza — which is widely considered to be the most influential international ranking service in regard to pizza.

Knowing that there were no reservations, I tried the old “show up 30 minutes before they open and hope I can sneak in” again, but was met with the same results as Lupita — another huge line out front. I added my name to the list and some 45 minutes later I had a seat at the bar, which ended up working out fantastically as it gave me a clear view into the kitchen so I could watch the pizzaiolos work.

For comparison’s sake (also a huge bookends guy over here), I decided to end my trip as I began it by ordering another Margherita. And wouldn’t you know it, look what else showed up with the pizza.

One of the things that I appreciated throughout my trip was all of the thought that was put into hospitality. There were countless, tiny gestures made by hotels, restaurants, tour companies, the smaller European airlines, that reminded me that there’s a thoughtfulness to the customer experience that doesn’t feel like it exists in the same way in America. Tiny gestures can go a long way, and some of my favorites were simple things, like:

-Pomodor giving you your own pizza scissors.

-Lupita writing their waitlist on the door for everyone to see.

-My hotel in Amsterdam (which was fantastic) sneaking us cookies from Van Stapele, an incredible bakery that typically has a two hour long line.

-And this move by a small chain of shops in Amsterdam called De Pizzabakkers, where they give you a place to stack your empty boxes so they can be recycled.

So look for the little touches! It’s a great indicator that someone loves what they’re doing enough to put that extra thought into sharing a piece of it with you.

I had two of the exact same pizzas on my trip. One was from a brand new, tiny restaurant that I walked right into with no wait where only a single other table was occupied. The other was from a restaurant that’s so busy they don’t have a single open reservation for the next 4 1/2 months and has been given every type of pizza accolade possible. Guess which one I enjoyed more?

Awards are nice, but just a reminder that they don’t mean everything. Food is so subjective, and no one else’s opinion (including mine!) should ever matter more to you than your own. So don’t forget to wander off the beaten path, no matter where you are, from time to time. That’s how you find some of the best stuff.