I Love You, But You’re Going to Kill Me: The best Francesinha in Porto

Has this ever happened to you?

You order a plate of food, and it lands on your table. Even before taking your first bite, you know that if you eat this there’s a good chance it could kill you.

But you eat it anyway because it just looks so good. 

That’s how I felt about my first francesinha—Porto’s fantastic, heart-stopping, gut-wrecking sandwich. It’s something that no one should leave Porto without trying, but it will provide your daily requirement of calories in one meal. So, plan your day around it. 

So what exactly is this sandwich, and where can you find the best francesinha in Porto?

What is a Francesinha sandwich?

Porto’s francesinha sandwich is the food equivalent of an out-of-control freight train. It’s loaded up with dense, calorie-packed goodies and will race through your gut leaving nothing but chaos in its path.

It’s also so freaking delicious that you won’t care, and might even come back the next day to punish your body some more. So let’s break this sandwich down:

Between two slices of thick, nutritionally-useless white bread is about a year’s supply of meat.

First you’ve got the ham. Now, a lot of sandwiches might just stop there.

Not this sandwich though. 

Nope, this sandwich is trying to satisfy John Cena’s monthly protein needs. So, let’s add a steak in there too. 

But steak and ham… it feels like it’s missing something. Oh that’s right, sausage. Would one type of sausage be enough? Probably. But let’s put in two just in case. 

Alright, so far we’ve got bread and Frankenstein’s meat monster. What else do we need?

Well, no sandwich is complete without cheese. So let’s drape a layer of it like a blanket over the entire thing, and then melt it. 

At this point, it’s becoming hard to see how anyone could eat this with their hands—like a sandwich should be eaten. But just in case you had any doubt, the chefs of Porto want to make sure that you have to use cutlery to take this beast down.

How do they do this? 

By adding a perfectly runny fried egg on top of the whole thing, and then serving it in a bowl full of tangy, brown sauce. Try to eat this with your hands and you’re going to look like someone threw it at your face. 

Don’t ask about the recipe

And the sauce, oooooh the sauce. It had the colour and consistency of baked beans sauce, but with so much more umami. I’ve looked up and down the internet to find out what’s in this goo, but no one seems to know. 

Apparently, Porto’s cooks are pretty secretive about their secret sauces. They vary by bar, but mine definitely had some sort of meat stock base, with some Piri-Piri tang. 

Whatever it was, it sure tasted good with all those fries that came with it. 

From France with carb-love

Turns out, francesinhas are the illegitimate love child of Portuguese and French cooking. 

They’re vaguely related to the croque monsieur, France’s own artery-clogging sandwich. A story of European immigration, the francesinha came about when a Portuguese man came home after time in France. 

Daniel da Silva, returning to southern Portugal, decided to adapt his favourite French carb-bomb for his local region’s taste. While his native Alentejo wasn’t appreciative of his creation (maybe they were on the Atkins diet), the Porto palate welcomed the francesinha with open arms and mouths. 

Today, the “little Frenchie” is synonymous with Porto’s cuisine, and a point of local pride.

Every bar has its own signature version, loaded up with their own secret sauce. You can have it with or without the egg and fries, but who are you kidding. If you’re going to try to eat this mammoth of a sandwich, there’s no point trying to keep it diet-friendly. 

Wash it down with a crisp local beer and you have yourself a nap-inducing lunch fit for the gods. 

The best francesinha in Porto

I knew that I could only survive one of these sandwiches. I was only in Porto for a few days, and fitting more than one francesinha into my body in that time might have killed me.

So, I wanted to make sure I had the best one in town.

And you better believe I found it. The sandwich was so delicious I had to finish the whole thing, even though all of my brain cells were screaming at me to stop the madness, to just put it down and leave my stomach alone. 

The egg yolk was runny, the cheese was creamy, the meat was meaty, and the secret sauce was tangy and so rich that it ranks as #10 on Portugal’s list of millionaires. 

Try it for yourself, and don’t regret a moment of it. Go to:

• Tasquinha do Bé (Rua de Belomonte 116).

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Travelling in Portugal? Don’t forget to read my foodie guide to eating and drinking in Faro!

Want to make your own? Check out this great francesinha recipe here!