As befits a country with some of the best fresh fish in the world, Portugal also has an excellent sushi scene. But you have to know where too look—too many restaurants rely on odd ingredients like mango and “Philadelphia,” and serve up entire sushi meals based on farmed salmon. Still, sushi lovers in Lisbon shouldn’t give up. There’s great sushi to be found if you’re willing to spend—but especially if you know where to look.
Photo at top: Soão
Best Sushi Restaurants in Lisbon
Kanazawa
One of Portugal’s most respected, longest-serving sushi chefs, Paulo Morais, turns out beautiful kaiseki (Japanese fine dining) lunches and dinners at his Tokyo-style counter-seating restaurant in Belém. There’s an enormous amount of attention paid to every detail, from the tableware to the quality of the rice. Meals generally unfold in seven, eight, or nine courses, but there’s also a five course vegetarian Oyama menu—with bites that have the textures and complexity of fish-based sushi and that add up to a satisfying, memorable meal.
R. Damião de Góis 3 A, | +351 213 010 292 | reservas@kanazawa.com.pt | Visit Kanazawa
Best Sushi Restaurants in Lisbon
by Koji
As a brand, by Koji was well regarded for its two sushi restaurants in São Paulo, probably the second best sushi city after Tokyo. Koji Yokomizo is something of a legend, a chef who has been passionate about raw fish ever since he started going out on boats with his father, a fisherman, as a child. For his third restaurant, in Lisbon’s fashionable Santos neighborhood, he installed Shinya Koike as the resident chef. The lengthy menu ranges over steamed appetizers like edamame and gyoza, sushi, sashimi, buns, and tempura dishes from the kitchen.
Calçada Marquês de Abrantes, 138 | +351 211 526 721 | book online at bykoji.com
Best Sushi Restaurants in Lisbon
Praia no Parque
For the first few years of the swanky Praia no Parque, in an historically significant building in Parque Eduardo VII, Lucas Azevedo’s sushi was almost an afterthought. He served it at a separate counter, and only at lunchtime. But in early 2022, availability caught up with demand, and now Azevedo’s sushi is available at the restaurant’s dinner tables. What hasn’t changed is his commitment to serving the absolute freshest, unadorned fish, in configurations ranging from sashimi and hand rolls.
Alameda Cardeal Cerejeira | +351 968 842 888 | reservasparque@apraia.pt | Visit Praia no Parque
Best Sushi Restaurants in Lisbon
Omakase Ri
This Japanese-speakeasy-style, seven-seat sushi counter in Alcântara is Lisbon’s first proper omakase restaurant—referring to a purist’s fine dining tasting menu. The chef, in this case Brazilian transplant Will Vargas, serves a series of impeccable nigiri sushi(sliced fish over vinegared rice) based on what looked best at the market that day and which special cuts of tuna his suppliers fly in straight from Japan. Of special note is the impressive sake selection.
Rua Alcântara 13 | +351 914 094 506 | book@omakaseri.com | Visit Omakase Ri
Best Sushi Restaurants in Lisbon
Kappo
A sleek, sophisticated dining counter in Cascais is the setting for chef Tiago Penão’s refined, created take on sushi and other Japanese dishes. He mixes longstanding Japanese traditions with contemporary gastronomy and European haute cuisine, especially a few of the tricks he picked up while working in the kitchens of classical French chefs and in the workshops of Albert Adrià in Spain. While the tasting menu is the way to go, there’s also an a la carte option for luxurious dishes like the sea urchin with Maresme green peas, and toro tortellini with wagyu tartlet.
Avenida Emídio Navarro 23A, Cascais | +351 214 844 122 | reservas@kappo.pt
Best Sushi Restaurants in Lisbon
Soão
Off the beaten track in Alvalade, Soão has been a good choice for pan-Asian food since the beginning, back in 2018. The sushi went up to the next level in 2021, when chef João Francisco Duarte (of KAI Lisboa, Midori, and London’s Sushi Samba, among others) came on board and set up a sushi counter on the ground floor. There, he slices super-fresh fish from the Portuguese coast into nigiri and other specialities like teriyaki grilled eel and a hot pot with clams cooked with sake and an escabeche of red onion and coriander.
Avenida da Roma 100 | +351 210 534 499 | reservas@soao.pt | Visit Soão
Best Sushi Restaurants in Lisbon
Kabuki
Lisbon’s outpost of the Spain-based Japanese-Mediterranean fusion restaurant group—the original, in Madrid, has a Michelin star—arrived in late 2021 in a subterranean space beneath the Four Seasons Hotel Ritz Lisbon, one of the city’s most prestigious addresses. Spanish chef Andrés Pereda oversees the stoves, producing a choice of tasting menus. Much of it seems strictly Japanese—there’s an excellent selection of sushi and sashimi—but sometimes the Latin influence becomes unmistakable, as in a plate of raw tuna topped with breadcrumbs and confit tomatoes, a nod to Spain’s classic pan con tomate.
Rua Castilho 77–77E, Galerias do Four Seasons Hotel Ritz Lisbon | +351 212 491 683 | Visit Kabuki
Best Sushi Restaurants in Lisbon
Midori
Lisbon’s only Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant, Midori has been playing with a combination of classical Japanese dishes and uniquely Portuguese influences for more than years, but chef Pedro Almeida and his team have a way of keeping everything reinvented and fresh. That mix isn’t just a convenient gambit—they’re actually exploring the intercultural relationship between the two countries in the 16th century, when Portuguese mariners arrived in Japan. The result is memorable dishes like the miso soup with the shredded greens and chorizo that are typical of caldo verde soup.
Estrada a Lagoa Azul, Sintra, Penha Longa Resort | +351 219 249 011 | restaurants@penhalonga.com | Visit Midori
Best Sushi Restaurants in Lisbon
Aron Sushi
Asked how his restaurants are different from Lisbon’s other sushi spots, São Paulo–born chef Aron Vargas de Almeida puts his hand over his heart and says, “Alma.” Soul. And it’s clear from his precise, prettily presented sushi and sashimi that his soul is in every stroke of his knives. He opened his first restaurant, in central Lisbon, years ago with the idea of bringing the most traditional dishes and the highest quality of fresh fish to his guests—without the gold leaf, caviar, and tomfoolery of some of the chefs who have followed. He opened a second outpost in Mercado Janeiro 31 (known to be one of Lisbon’s very best fish markets) after he discovered the sushi restaurants within Tokyo’s fish markets. There’s a sizable clientele from the Lisbon’s Japanese embassy.
Rua Marquês Sá da Bandeira 14A / B | +351 213 574 118 or +351 925 231 969
Rua Engenheiro Vieira da Silva 18 | +351 213 540 286 | Visit Aron Sushi
Best Sushi Restaurants in Lisbon
GoJuu
One of Lisbon’s best, most old-school Japanese restaurants, Go Juu began as an homage to sushi master Takashi Yoshitake-san of AYA, the long-gone place that introduced sushi and sashimi to a raw-fish-averse Portuguese public. A lot has changed since then, but GoJuu continues to turn out classical Japanese fare, not only sushi and sashimi but also AYA-tribute plates like miso eggplant, snapper head cooked in soy sauce, and oysters with ponzu.
Rua Marquês Sá da Bandeira 46A | +351 218 280 704 | reservations by joining the club at membro@gojuu.pt
