A Favorita do Bolhão is a delicatessen, located in downtown Porto. It’s been open since 1934 and is one of my favorite places in town. Imagine that your 5 years old and you enter this delicatessen, filled with cheese, wine, chocolates, pasta, rice, dried fruits, candy, preserves and marmalades, coffee, tea, fish preserves…you name it. Now, let’s say that you have a strong imagination and all these things you see stick to the back of your head and you later start living amazing adventures in a delicatessen! Yeah, I’m that crazy. Oh well, I used to believe that there were people living inside my grandparents radio, so…

Ok, back to reality! The truth about Favorita is that once you walk through the door, there’s no turning back. The smells and deliciousness are all around. They have a great selection of wine, nuts, dried fruits, cheese and deli meats. If you’re a fan of figs, you’ll find your favorite fruit from different origins. Are you nuts for nuts? Wallnuts, pecans, cashews, brazil nuts, hazelnuts, peanuts, pistachios, almonds, pine nuts, macadamia. I could go on and on. Whenever I want to buy dates, this is where I go. I could make a list of all the products they have, but it would take ages. Take a look at the preserves section. Portuguese preserves are really good and they have a good variety.

The best thing about Favorita, along with the quality products? The quality staff. The staff is as nice as you can imagine, funny, welcoming and really efficient. As people in Porto usually are. One thing I like to do is to choose a kind of product, let’s say deli meat and ask for a suggestion. Never been disappointed!
A Favorita do Bolhão is located close do Mercado do Bolhão, Porto’s City Hall and is in walking distance from Majestic Café, Santa Catarina street and Aliados avenue. This deli closes at lunch time (from 1pm to 2:30 pm) but is open till 7:30 pm. On saturdays, they’re open only till 1 pm.