Last updated: 09/10/2023
Discover the Italianino Coimbra restaurant, which offers Italian cuisine in the center of one of the most famous cities in Portugal.
ITALIAN COIMBRA
Opened in 2020, Italianino Coimbra is an Italian restaurant located in the heart of the city, behind the Old Cathedral of Coimbra and surrounded by the Palace of Schools of the University of Coimbra and fur Machado de Castro National Museum, some of Coimbra's main attractions. The restaurant has a welcoming atmosphere, decorated with every detail in mind.
The restaurant seeks to use ingredients of Italian origin and, whenever possible, organic. The menu is renewed periodically to provide customers with a different gastronomic experience with each visit.
Italianino Coimbra specializes in artisanal naturally fermented pizzas and typically Italian fresh pasta, such as Spaghetti Carbonara and Gnocchi, offering a journey to Italy through food. Among the starters are Bruschetta, Foccacia, Farinata, Arancini and desserts include the traditional Panna Cotta and Tiramisù.
OUR EXPERIENCE IN THE ITALIAN COIMBRA
After visiting the Palace of Schools of the University of Coimbra, we decided to have lunch nearby before visiting the Machado de Castro National Museum. We saw that Italianino Coimbra had excellent reviews from customers who had been there before and Italian food is always a good choice, right? Furthermore, we had seen information on TripAdvisor that there were vegetarian and vegan options there. We decided to give it a chance and headed there. We were warmly welcomed by the restaurant owner. However, we soon saw that the menu was much more restricted than we thought and everything was written on a small blackboard with chalk. There was no paper menu to consult. When asking about vegan options, no one really knew what that was, meaning the information on TripAdvisor was not coherent.
We were hungry and, to start, we ordered traditional Bruschetta and Gnocchi in tomato sauce for the main course. The restaurant owner told us that he didn't recommend Bruschetta with pasta because it would be too heavy and suggested that we eat just the pasta. For a moment, we didn't react because he talked a lot about several different topics and we couldn't stop to think. We were hungry and the owner himself suggested we not order the starter? We didn't quite understand that and we weren't very comfortable insisting on eating something he told us not to eat. Well, we ordered our plates of gnocchi and, of course, the portion that came was not enough to satisfy our hunger – neither my hunger nor Paulo's, who is almost 1.90m tall.
However, it was already late and we wanted to continue our tours of Coimbra. Unfortunately, our experience at Italianino Coimbra was not the best. If you've been there and had a better experience than ours, be sure to leave your comments in the comments, as we hope that our case was an exception and not the rule.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Italian Coimbra
- Address: R. Borges Carneiro 6, 3000-079 Coimbra, Portugal
- Schedules: from Wednesday to Sunday from 12:30 pm to 2:30 pm and from 2:30 pm to 10 pm | closed on Mondays and Tuesdays
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