The Portuguese, it is often said, are Britain’s oldest ally. Almost everyone who’s ever travelled to Portugal speaks highly of the country and the hospitality of its people. Gourmand Gunno has been more times than he can recall. Yet it remains anomalous just how few good Portuguese restaurants there are in central London. Fortunately, Bar Douro is one of them.
The original Bar Douro (named after the country’s most significant river) opened in London Bridge a decade ago. Its City outpost is seven years old and the timing of our visit seemed auspicious, since the group’s third outlet is set to open in Soho next month. Certainly, when stepping into the Bar Douro branch on Finsbury Avenue, you could – just for a moment – imagine you were in Lisbon or Porto. What strikes guests immediately is the design aesthetic. It’s classic Portugal, with blue and white azulejo tiles, a mosaic flooring and a marble counter. It marks a clear contract with the nearby skyscrapers.
My dining comrade and I seated ourselves at the counter to partake in the fullest experience. Servers and other guests bustled around us, while we got to see the kitchen team plying their trade, with bartenders doing their business just a little further along. Atmosphere can’t be manufactured. It’s either instinctive, or it’s not. In Bar Douro’s case it was the clearly the former.
Food-wise, we’re in classic Portuguese territory here, with the main angle being petiscos – the country’s equivalent to their neighbours’ much-better-known tapas. Bar Douro takes traditional Portuguese classics and adds modern touches. It’s all done very well. The smoked sausage croquettes pictured were emblematic of this approach – and very tasty too. Fish trumped meat at Bar Douro, with both garlic prawns and seared tuna proving excellent. If there were one truly memorable dish, then it would be the ‘quiejo de Seia amanteigado’, or a raw sheep’s cheese, that was properly runny and pungent. The flavour lingered, in a truly good way. A lovely bottle of regional red from the up-and-coming M.O.B winery helped things along nicely.
Service was slightly hit-and-miss with some of the team a little too keen to clear dishes before they were finished, or to be constantly rearranging in our counter space to give the appearance of being involved. Live and let live would be a better approach. Our ordered bacalhau never arrived. Small concerns and not enough to prevent another return visit, especially since Bar Douro is generally priced well given its location.