More Than Meets the Eye
With its early-opening hours, bright and shiny interior, coffee bar, counters, stools, and booths, this place could be taken as a typical breakfast restaurant, but don’t be misled. This is a serious Portuguese cuisine restaurant that will reveal to you the wonders of Iberian cuisine. They do serve traditional Canadian breakfast fare, but look closer at the menu and find some Mediterranean delights. Try a Portuguese omelet made with chourico, a fermented cured smoke sausage that gets its flavour from dried smoked red pepper.

Lunch Can Be an Adventure Too
You can get standard lunchtime sandwiches, but treat yourself instead. Try Paella with saffron rice and crab; or sardinas assada, a plate of fresh grilled sardines; or bacalhau cosido, a poached cod with sliced egg, chickpeas, boiled potatoes, and Portuguese salsa. If it must be a sandwich, try one made with veal simmered in Alcatra’s home-made tomato sauce on a freshly baked baguette.

The Dinner Menu is Served Only Two Nights a Week
Alcatra is only open for dinner on Friday and Saturday nights. On those nights the Portuguese heritage comes to the fore. The appetizers are calamari, baked shrimp, baked scallops, mussels, and clams, all done up a la Mediterranean. The entrée menu is diverse. Choose a Portuguese Chourico flamed in vodka. Or grilled quail marinated with garlic, wine, and Portuguese pepper paste. Or try the namesake of the restaurant, Alcatra, a traditional beef pot roast slow roasted for hours in a clay pot with special herbs and spices. And that is not all by any means. Bring your appetite.