Season nine of Anthony Bourdain’s eclectic travel and food show ‘Parts Unknown‘ came to an end last night. Bourdain found himself in Porto, Portugal with his former boss from his Les Halles days, José de Meirelles. It was a show that exposed the beauty of Porto while also offering catharsis, as Bourdain circled back to his first TV show.
For forty-odd minutes, Bourdain wandered the ancient streets of Porto eating and talking, as he’s known to do. He spoke with locals about Porto’s fight against gentrification and highlighted the ideals that make Porto a truly unique city, even in Portugal. Naturally, there was an incredible amount of great food and wine accenting every scene. There were seafood towers! There was cheese porn! The port flowed freely!
Bourdain then spent some time with his old boss, Meirelles, at another family pig roast. The echoes of Bourdain’s early days on A Cook’s Tour were evident as yet another porcine feast got started with the ritualistic slaughter of a pig.
“A traditional pig feast, which in cultures all over the world—cultures as disparate as Sicily, Borneo, Romania, and rural Louisiana—is a cherished celebration involving whole communities, a joyous occasion where people come together to cook and eat and drink. It invariably involves the killing of an animal. And I will tell you: It was a deeply unsettling experience,” Bourdain laments in his voice-over as a pig makes a ruckus in the background and a priest says a prayer.
It’s a scene we’ve seen on Bourdain’s shows again and again. And its importance remains the same as Bourdain is “unsettled” to this day with actually having to confront the mortality of his dinner.
PORTO
Let’s dive into the episode with a look at the beautiful location. Porto is one of the larger cities on the Iberian Peninsula with a history dating back to 300 BCE. The city is home to just over two million people and has been a cultural and trading center of Portugal for centuries. This has lent the city a very cosmopolitan vibe, as generation after generation of transient explorers, traders, adventurers, and now tourists have walked the cobbled lanes.
Porto is most famous for their local fortified wine, Port. The city has some of the oldest Port cellars in the world and casks are still rolled down to the Douro River to be shipped all over the world.
CAFE O AFONSO
Bourdain dipped into this little lunch spot for a serious sandwich. The francesinha is a ham, pork steak, sausage, and linguiça (a spicy Iberian sausage) meat bomb pressed between two large slices of white bread with layers of melted cheese and smothered in sauce that’s mostly beer, port, tomatoes, and paprika.
Bourdain’s table companions — Taberna do Largo’s Sofia Príncipe and Joana Conde — described the francesinha as a 2,500 calorie meal that’s a perfect hangover cure. And, wow, do we want one.
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ESPLANADA MARISQUEIRA A ANTIGA
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You know it’s going to be good when Bourdain introduced a dish as “Seafood tower, bitches!” This stop in Porto was a seafood feast for the ages. This Michelin listed restaurant prides itself on the freshest available seafood cooked to perfection. You can even order seafood from them to take home and cook yourself, but who wants all that mess?
Bourdain and tour guide Ricardo Brochado tucked into a smorgasbord of oysters, clams, langoustines, crab, sea urchin, goose-neck barnacles, salt-baked sea bass, shrimp, whelks, and more clams. It looked delightful.
REAL COMPANHIA VELHA
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Porto is known as the home of Port and Bourdain got an insider’s tour of the iconic Real Companhia Velha cellars with tour guide and food expert André Apolinário.
The port and cheese tasting companions talked the finer points of making food porn while eating what looked like amazing cheeses. The cheeses were so good that Bourdain described one bite by emoting “that’s disturbing—I mean, that’s delicious.”
A disturbingly delicious cheese? Yes and please.
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CERVEJARIA GAZELA
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Bourdain met up with Taberna do Largo owners for another iconic Porto snack. Gazela is a quick in-and-out sort place for cold beer and the house specialty — a sort of hot dog that’s pressed with a lot of cheese and spicy sauce between some soft bread to toasty and melty perfection. It was another chapter in Bourdain’s self-appointed search for every “mutant hot dog” on earth.
A COZINHA DO MARTINHO
José de Meirelles took Bourdain to a very traditional Porto dinner at this spot. They talked Porto’s food scene while eating fried sardines and bowls of Tripas à Moda do Porto or Tripe Porto’s Way. That’s a local stew of tripe, sausages, pork, and white beans. The recipe varies house to house, but those four ingredients remain the cornerstone of a hearty bowl.
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TABERNA DO LARGO
Although Sofia Príncipe and Joana Conde showed Bourdain some of the heavier Porto snacks, they never made it to their own taberna in the show. So, we thought we’d highlight it anyway.
Taberna do Largo is kind of like if an Italian charcuterie and a Spanish pintxos bar had a baby. Their curation of the best-cured meats, cheeses, and wines makes this a must stop for any food traveler wandering through Porto.
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