The Cannery Row - Short break in Lisbon

At the beginning of the year we were in Lisbon for a week to unwind from the Christmas and end-of-year stress, just to breathe a different air... and maybe discover some new great canned fish for the store!

And so we first visited the Conserveira de Lisboa , from which we already have some products in our range. The Conserveira de Lisboa was founded in 1930 and the business of selling has changed little since those days. The shop is tiny, when there are five customers in the shop it is full and you feel like the proverbial sardine in a can. On the walls are old wooden shelves on which the canned goods are presented, a wide wooden counter with a huge, beautiful and worn till separates the customers from the sellers. An employee sits in a corner and wraps the neutral tins in the attractive wrapping paper with the memorable logo. One employee manages about 600 cans a day. Selma Santos, who takes care of the export, spent a lot of time with us and recommended some new fish specialties such as B. sardine eggs.

The sardine is omnipresent in Lisbon. Whether in a can, fresh on the grill, as graffiti on the wall or on all kinds of souvenirs, you will be reminded of them everywhere. Next time we fly to Lisbon in June, when on June 12th, on the eve of Saint Antonio's Day, the start of the sardine season is celebrated and the whole city gets out, celebrates, and eats grilled sardines!

Speaking of food: We ate a lot of fish, but we almost ate even more little sweet delicacies - such as e.g. B. the pastéis de nata - which can be found on every corner in one of the countless pastelerias (patisseries). It's a good thing that we almost exclusively walked and walked up and down many, many steps, so at least we really deserved them!

An absolute highlight for us was the visit to Sol e Pesca , a restaurant that is located in a former fishing shop and where you can eat almost exclusively canned fish. On small, somewhat rickety flea market furniture you can eat the fish that you have previously selected from a display case full of canned goods between fishing rods, traps, posters of fish and fishing hooks. There are sardines, mackerel, bacalao, tuna, squid and octopus in many different variations. The can is opened, the fish is placed on a plate with some olive oil and fresh herbs, along with bread and a nice Vinho Verde. Delicieux!

There we discovered the tuna from St. Catarina, which we have been selling in our shop since yesterday and of course online .

We met Tiago from Miss Can. Tiago, his twin sister Barbara and Marta, a friend of the two, recently founded the company Miss Can and have been selling sardines, mackerel & bacalao in a modern guise ever since. However, the content is quite traditional canned fish. Miss Can's three were looking for the taste of their childhood, because they all have the sardine in their genes: Tiago and Barbara's grandfather owned two fish canning factories and Marta's great-grandfather was a wholesaler in the first Portuguese fish factory. After visiting seven canning factories, they found one in northern Portugal that cooks the fish the way they know it. Miss Can products will soon be available in our shop: From Portugal with love!

Although it rained more or less the whole week, it was a wonderful short vacation, during which we gained many new impressions and came up with new ideas. Lisbon is a great and exciting city, the people are very friendly and open. We will come back in any case!