Eating Outside in Lisbon: What an Esplanade Actually Gets You

What an esplanada is, and what it is not

In Portugal an esplanada is outdoor seating attached to a restaurant or café — the standard way of eating outside in Lisbon, and close to a national habit rather than a summer novelty. The word covers a wide range, from four pavement tables to a fully built covered terrace, which is why "has an esplanade" on its own tells you almost nothing.

Three questions turn the label into information: is it covered or open, does it get sun or shade at the hour you are going, and is the full menu served out there or only a reduced one. The third catches people out most often. A kitchen that treats its outdoor tables as an overflow will sometimes limit what it sends outside.

Covered or uncovered: the two areas here

Il Matriciano has both, and they behave differently.

That is roughly eighty seats across all three areas. The full Roman menu is served in all of them, at the same hours: lunch Monday to Saturday 12:30 to 15:00, dinner 19:30 to 23:00, closed Sundays.

What the press has said about this esplanade

The outdoor space is not a recent addition, and it has been noticed. Reviewing the restaurant for Observador in July 2015, Tiago Pais captioned a photograph of it with a bilingual pun — the Portuguese esplanada corrected to the Italian spianata:

"A esplanada, perdão, a 'spianata' é um dos grandes trunfos do Il Matriciano."

"The esplanade — pardon, the 'spianata' — is one of Il Matriciano's great assets."

— Observador, 5 July 2015, by Tiago Pais (translated from Portuguese)

Six years later, Mesa Marcada registered the outdoor space again on a return visit, alongside the growth of the wine list — "o brotar de uma varanda muito agradável," the appearance of a very pleasant balcony (20 August 2021, Cristiana Beltrão).

The restaurant has also been included in NiT's roundup of Lisbon esplanades to spend summer days on.

When to sit outside in Lisbon

Practical timing, specific to this street:

Lunch, 12:30 to 15:00. The covered esplanade is the better half of the service in high summer, when the midday sun makes uncovered tables hard work. It is also the quieter option for a working lunch or a larger table — the restaurant sits directly opposite the Assembleia da República, and the room fills with people on a schedule. Italian Lunch Near Parliament covers that side.

Dinner, 19:30 to 23:00. An outside table from spring through early autumn is the best seat in the house for a long dinner. Book the earlier end if you want it quiet, the later end if you want the street busy.

Winter and wet days. The covered side stays usable in light rain; the uncovered seats do not. If the forecast is uncertain, book and say you would take either — if there is room inside, the staff will happily move you. Eating Outside Year-Round goes through the calendar season by season.

Booking an outside table

Two things make this work. First, ask when you book, not on arrival — thirty outdoor seats against fifty indoors means the outside goes first in good weather. Second, say which outside you mean, covered or open, because they are genuinely different tables.

Book by phone on +351 213 952 639 or by email at ilmatriciano.info@gmail.com. The address is Rua de São Bento 107, directly opposite the Portuguese Parliament, under a minute's walk from the Assembleia building.

What arrives at the table is the same Roman menu served indoors: three of the four canonical Roman pastas — amatriciana, cacio e pepe and carbonara — with guanciale from Sano di Amatrice, Pecorino Romano DOP from Fulvi, and dry pasta from Pastificio Verrigni and La Pasta di Aldo. Fresh Pasta in Lisbon sets out what is made by hand each morning.