Try anything once: the Francesinha
Our features editor, a former vegetarian, visited Café Santiago in Porto to sample the city’s notoriously meaty signature sandwich: the francesinha
Words ORLA THOMAS @orlathomas Photographs ADRIENNE PITTS @hellopoe
THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME I’D BEEN SCARED of a sandwich, but then it was my first encounter with the francesinha. Raised vegetarian, and still squeamish about non-plant proteins, I didn’t relish the thought of sampling Porto’s meat-crammed signature dish. A four-inch stack of thick bread stuffed with wet-cured ham, linguiqa (cured sausage) and steak, smothered with melted cheese, bathed in tomato-based sauce and topped with an egg, it’s a full meal - celebratorily carnivorous - masquerading as a sandwich.