Trattoria in Lisbon: What the Word Means, and What to Look For

Four words that are not synonyms

In Italy, the name over the door tells you roughly what you will find inside. The four everyday categories:

• Ristorante — the most formal. A longer menu, structured service, higher prices.
• Trattoria — family-run, regional cooking, moderate prices. A shorter menu tied to a place.
• Osteria — historically a wine house that began serving food. Few dishes.
• Pizzeria — pizza needs its own oven, which makes it a category of its own.

In modern practice the lines have blurred: Italy has expensive trattorie and plain ristoranti, and the word on the sign is a hint, not a contract. But one distinction still works, and it is the most useful one in Lisbon: a trattoria is not a pizzeria.

What Lisbon's food writers have noticed

Writing in Mesa Marcada in August 2021, Cristiana Beltrão described the city's Italian scene in a sentence:

"Lisbon has several pleasant canteens focused on pizza, but few gastronomic Italian restaurants. For the days when you are homesick for it, there is the tiny Il Matriciano, run by the lovely couple Alessandro and Stefania."

— Mesa Marcada, 20 August 2021, by Cristiana Beltrão · translated from Portuguese

The same month, Visão published a list whose title spelled out its test: nine restaurants in Lisbon that bring "the real Italian cooking" — with no pizza on the menu. If you are searching for a trattoria in Lisbon, that is usually the thing you are actually looking for.

Four checks before you book

None of these needs a reservation to test. All four can be checked from the menu, a photo of the room and a phone call.

• The menu has a home region. A trattoria cooks from somewhere. A menu that runs carbonara, lasagne bolognese, risotto Milanese and Neapolitan pizza side by side, with no centre of gravity, is a summary of Italy rather than a kitchen from one part of it.
• The owners are in the room. A trattoria is, at root, a family house. Ask who runs it; the answer should be a name, not a group.
• The room is small. Fifty covers is a trattoria. Two hundred is something else.
• The ingredients have names. "Quality Italian ingredients" is not information. The name of the producer is.

Where Il Matriciano falls

Il Matriciano opened in 2015 at Rua de São Bento 107, opposite the Assembleia da República, and has been run since then by its co-founders, Alessandro Laganà and Stefania Carpoca, a trained sommelier. The dining room has about 50 seats, with a covered esplanade of 20 more and 10 uncovered seats outside.

Its home region is Rome. The first courses open with the Roman classics — carbonara, amatriciana and cacio e pepe — and the restaurant is named after pasta alla matriciana. The rest of the menu is honest about ranging further: a Milanese veal cutlet, tortelloni with Genovese braised beef, orecchiette with friarelli, the Neapolitan greens. Read it as a Roman kitchen with an Italian pantry.

There is no pizza. The pizza on this street is made on the same block, at nº 99, by the sister pizzeria Sora Lella — which is the Italian split, trattoria and pizzeria, laid out on one block. Where to Eat Near São Bento walks through the choice.

The producers, by name: guanciale from Sano di Amatrice (Lazio), Pecorino Romano DOP from the Fulvi dairy (Lazio), dry pasta from Pastificio Verrigni (Roseto degli Abruzzi, Teramo) and La Pasta di Aldo (Monte San Giusto, Marche), and Olio Sassicaia from Tenuta San Guido. The fresh shapes are made by hand every morning. The full supply chain is in From Teramo to Lisbon.

What others have said about the cooking

Time Out's English-language review put the emphasis on the raw material:

"It is part of the wave of good Italian restaurants to have opened in Lisbon in recent years, where the raw material, much of it coming from Italy, is taken very seriously by Alessandro Lagana, the owner."

— Time Out Lisbon

And Time Out Lisboa, in Portuguese, on the size of the plates:

"Il Matriciano's portions — the restaurant owes its name to the famous way of making pasta alla matriciana — are designed to make a proper Italian meal."

— Time Out Lisboa · translated from Portuguese

In October 2021 the restaurant won Little Big Italy (NOVE, Season 4 Episode 4, "Lisbona", broadcast 11 October 2021), finishing one point ahead of Bella Ciao and La Bottega di Giò on Francesco Panella's voto di italianità. The press record is collected in Press & Recognition.

The wine list — 126 bottles from 14 Italian regions plus Champagne, 26 by the glass — is Stefania's, and it is printed in full at Our Wines.

Where and when

Il Matriciano — Rua de São Bento 107, 1200-816 Lisbon, directly opposite the Assembleia da República. Monday to Saturday: lunch 12:30–15:00, dinner 19:30–23:00. Closed on Sundays.

Phone: +351 213 952 639 · Email: ilmatriciano.info@gmail.com