Dinner for Two in Lisbon: How to Order a Roman Meal

A Roman dinner has a shape, and it is not "one main each"

The most common way to have a slightly disappointing dinner at an Italian restaurant is to order it like a Portuguese or British one: a starter if you remember, then a large plate each, then the bill. The Italian sequence is different, and it is the reason the portions look the size they do.

It runs antipasto, primo, secondo, dolce: something to open with, then the pasta, then a meat or fish course, then dessert. Nobody expects two people to take all four on a weeknight. The useful part is the order of operations — the pasta is a course in the middle of a meal, not the meal.

Time Out Lisboa made the same point about this kitchen specifically:

"As doses do Il Matriciano, que deve o nome à famosa maneira de fazer massa alla matriciana, estão pensadas para fazer uma verdadeira refeição italiana."

"The portions at Il Matriciano, which takes its name from the famous way of making pasta alla matriciana, are designed to make a proper Italian meal."

— Time Out Lisboa (translated from Portuguese)

Read that as a practical instruction rather than a compliment. The plates are sized for a sequence. Two people who order two large courses each will be defeated by the second one.

The welcome glass

Two published sources, two years apart, describe the same opening. MAGG's February 2022 review is built around it — the headline counts "sete anos, um prosecco de boas-vindas e sete pratos", seven years, a welcome prosecco and seven dishes — and a diner writing on TheFork in January 2024 described "empregados amáveis, com bebida de boas vindas", kind staff and a welcome drink.

It reads as a habit of the house rather than an advertised offer, which is worth saying plainly: expect it as a likely start to the evening, not as something to hold anyone to. Either way, do not order an aperitivo the moment you sit down. Wait a minute and see what arrives.

The primo is the point: three of the four Roman pastas

The kitchen is Roman — from Lazio — and carries three of the four canonical Roman pastas: amatriciana, cacio e pepe and carbonara. For two people, the single best decision of the evening is to take one each of two different ones and taste across the table.

Time Out Lisboa names the carbonara as the dish to try, "com guanciale de Abruzzo e uma mistura de pecorino e parmesão". It also has the longest published record of any dish on the menu. Speaking to Visão in 2021, co-founder Stefania Carpoca described it as pork cheek, eggs, Pecorino Romano and black pepper brought from a small spice shop in Italy — and, as she put it, "sem natas" como manda a receita original, without cream, as the original recipe requires.

The provenance behind those three plates is the same in each case: guanciale from Sano di Amatrice, Pecorino Romano DOP from Fulvi, olive oil from Olio Sassicaia at Tenuta San Guido, and dry pasta from Pastificio Verrigni and La Pasta di Aldo — both recognised by Gambero Rosso International. Roman Carbonara in Lisbon covers the carbonara, Pasta all'Amatriciana the dish the restaurant is named after, and Fresh Pasta in Lisbon what is rolled by hand each morning.

What to share, and what not to

Share the antipasto and share the dessert. Do not share the pasta.

That is not a rule about generosity, it is about temperature and dressing. A plate of pasta is finished and dressed to be eaten as it lands; split between two plates it arrives cooler and thinner than it was meant to. If you want to taste both, take a forkful from each other's plate in the first minute — which is, in practice, what everyone does anyway.

If you want a primo beyond the Roman three, the menu goes wider than Lazio. Writing on TripAdvisor in February 2026, Sharon D called the pasta with clams "the best pasta with clams I have ever eaten (better than some places in Italy I would add)".

If one of you does not eat meat

Two of the three Roman classics are out: both amatriciana and carbonara are built on guanciale, and there is no meat-free version of either that is still the dish. The third, cacio e pepe, is vegetarian by construction — pecorino and black pepper — and is the one to order.

Beyond it the menu carries ravioli di burrata with cherry tomatoes and toasted pine nuts, ravioli ricotta e spinaci, pasta al tartufo, risotto ai funghi porcini and melanzane alla parmigiana. That is enough for one of you to eat a full three courses without negotiating with the kitchen.

The wine, and who chose it

The list is kept by Stefania Carpoca, who co-founded the restaurant with Alessandro Laganà in 2015 and is a sommelier. Mesa Marcada noticed the list had grown on a return visit in August 2021. For a dinner built around a bottle rather than a view, that is the relevant credential, and it is a reasonable evening to ask rather than to choose from the page.

One practical note on the room itself: fifty close-set seats, no music-led atmosphere, and a press record for discretion. A Romantic Italian Dinner in Lisbon describes the room in detail, including what it is not.

How long to allow, and when to book

Allow two hours. Dinner runs Monday to Saturday from 19:30 to 23:00, and the restaurant is closed on Sundays, which rules out a Sunday-night plan entirely. A 19:30 table gets the room as it fills — the quieter half of the service. A 21:00 table gets it at its fullest.

Book by phone on +351 213 952 639 or by email at ilmatriciano.info@gmail.com. Say whether you want the dining room or the esplanade — there is a covered esplanade of about twenty seats and ten more uncovered, and in good weather the outside goes first. The address is Rua de São Bento 107, opposite the Assembleia da República; Where to Eat Near São Bento covers getting there and parking.