Salete knows it by heart: Mr. Engineer’s table is number six, Dona Catarina sits at table one, right beside Mr. Ramos. Homero knows it too, of course, because in that house in Campolide it has always been like that. Ever since 1914, when the restaurant A Valenciana first opened its doors as a humble eatery, before growing in size and in affection, becoming an extension of home for the neighborhood and a safe harbor for those just passing through.
Homero Videira and Salete Gonçalves are today the ones responsible for keeping alive not only the traditional charcoal grill of the house, but also a heritage that intertwines with the history of Campolide — a story that began over a century ago when another Homero, Marinho Serqueira, left the small village of São Julião e Silva in Valença do Minho, near the Galician border, to make a living in Lisbon.
Since then, a lot of wood has been burned on the grill, and so much has changed in Campolide, in Lisbon, and in that former eatery — but not the irresistible taste of homemade food. It is precisely that flavor which has earned A Valenciana a spot among the Top 101 Restaurants in Lisbon, a ranking organized by Immigrant Foodies in partnership with Mensagem de Lisboa.
here the 101 TOP
A well-deserved recognition of the strength of tradition, which has bravely resisted the fleeting trends of a multicultural, tourism-driven city, continuing to serve “the same food as always.” Because if there is one thing that never changes, it is the human palate’s ability to recognize a truly delicious plate of food.
The story of A Valenciana is also delicious — almost novel-like, reminiscent of One Hundred Years of Solitude, filled with characters and plot twists, including a fire that, instead of bringing the end, allowed the restaurant to rise again from the ashes.
With the strength of a Phoenix.
Tradition that stands the test of fire
But to understand this story properly, we must travel back in time — to when today’s home of A Valenciana, at number 157 of Rua Marquês da Fronteira, stood exactly… at Lisbon’s border, one of the gateways into the city. A stopping point for travelers, many of them merchants heading into the capital for business.
A Valenciana began as a casa de pasto — a small mixed business where one could buy kerosene, wine, and essentials, and where a meal was always guaranteed: caldo verde to warm the stomach, and chicken grilled over charcoal — a hallmark of the house from day one.
The restaurant was also frequented by Carris transport workers whose shift-change center was nearby, almost where tram 24 parks today by the parish council of Campolide. At the time, it was just a tiny dining room and a busy counter — a reality that remained for decades, until the mid-20th century.
A turning point came in 1965, when the three employees — Luís Videira, Serafim Barbosa, and Silvério Amandio Baía, originally from Vila Nova de Cerdeira and Vale dos Paços — took over the business from its founder, Homero Marinho Serqueira. Three young men with ambition, vision, and energy to grow that small eatery.
“Back then, boys had to become men very quickly,” says the current Homero of the house — son of one of those men, Luís Videira — the partner whose life became most deeply bound to A Valenciana. He is forever honored in the restaurant following his death in January 2025, aged 83 — more than 50 of those years devoted to the establishment.
His dedication can be measured, for instance, in square meters. Under Luís Videira, the small dining room, counter, and grill expanded across the block, absorbing neighboring shops — a clothing store, a bakery, a drugstore, and two others: one selling crockery and another hardware.
Luís’s tenacity was truly tested during the most dramatic moment in the restaurant’s history: in November 2011, when a fire destroyed the “heart” of A Valenciana. “The charcoal grill has always been the mother-house of the restaurant, and seeing it burn was heartbreaking,” recalls Homero, who was already working there — he had started helping his father on Saturdays back in 1998, when he was 18.
Instead of laying off the grill workers while the area was shut down, Luís put them to work rebuilding it. His promise was to reopen within three months — and so it happened: on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 2012, the passionate “heart” of A Valenciana beat again.
“We rose from the ashes like a Phoenix,” Homero sums up. The comeback was grand. Today, A Valenciana is large not only in history but in numbers: 450 seats indoors, another 200 on the terrace, 96 employees, and hundreds of meals served daily — all centered on the rebuilt charcoal grill, now igniting only the delights of the menu.
The world-famous piri piri chicken
In essence: Portuguese food in its purest form, grilled over charcoal just as it was more than a century ago. And without exceptions. “Once, the leader of a large tourist group asked if we could make pizzas and spaghetti. We obviously refused,” says Salete, niece of Luís Videira, who practically grew up at A Valenciana.
“I wasn’t born here, but my christening was during the inauguration of the main dining room,” laughs Salete — who studied marketing but gave up an internship in the commercial department of the former Capital newspaper to help at the restaurant. “They were understaffed and needed help — and besides, I was young and already eager to earn my own money.”
The pizza-and-spaghetti incident remains an exception in an otherwise smooth relationship between A Valenciana’s traditions and the new Lisbon — the foreign residents and the thousands of tourists staying in nearby hotels who come in search of the restaurant’s flagship dish, now internationally famous thanks to a feature by the BBC.
In 2016, the renowned British chef-presenter Rick Stein published a BBC segment inviting viewers from across the world to try “Portugal’s famous piri piri chicken” — a one-minute video that has lasted more than a decade in impact. “Now tourists arrive by the hundreds, all looking for Rick’s piri piri chicken,” says Salete with amusement.
And there must be enough chicken for all those admirers and lisboetas from everywhere. The miracle of multiplying chickens does not fall to a saint — but to Frade. More precisely, Manuel Frade, the restaurant’s longest-serving grill master. He first faced the blazing charcoal at the age of 12 and, over 40 years later, is still responsible for the flagship dish.
Another victory of tradition over fleeting trends — the recipe behind A Valenciana’s success — just like knowing every regular’s table: Mr. Engineer’s, Dona Catarina’s, and Mr. Ramos’s, whom Salete even called the previous day after noticing his uncharacteristic absence at lunch.
“Well, I went to lunch with my children and forgot to let you know,” Mr. Ramos explained — grateful for the care and affection of a family business that is family not only because it passes from generation to generation, but because it welcomes every customer as part of one immense family.
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conta histórias que ninguém conta e muda vidas.
Dantes pagava-se com publicidade,
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Se gosta do que fazemos e acha que é importante,
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