I’d been thinking about going to BLOOM ever since I walked past it one morning when we lived in neighbouring Santos – the area my partner and I stayed in when we first moved to Lisbon. It’s a small but pretty restaurant and it immediately caught my eye with the hum of people inside. A tad hipster? Perhaps, but I’ve found that places here tend to be hipster for a reason; the food is good, and that’s all that really matters to me in the end.
Set on the busy Calçada da Pampulha between Lisbon’s Estrela and Alcântara neighbourhoods, BLOOM’s main menu offers a selection of soups, mains, and burgers, alongside a cocktail list that contains a few of the classics (although it was missing a bloody mary) alongside some interesting looking original creations. But what we came for was the brunch menu.
It’s worth noting that – like many Lisbon brunch places – you can’t make bookings at BLOOM on weekends. We arrived at around 10:30am on a Sunday with our fingers crossed, and luckily it was fairly quiet with only a couple of other tables of diners at the time, but it had quickly filled up by the time we left, just before midday.
BLOOM – a flower of the Lisbon brunch scene
The brunch menu is nicely thought-out, with some of the usual dishes that you would expect to see, like eggs benedict and florentine, avocado toast, a fry-up, pancakes, and breakfast bowls. But what really caught my eye were the savoury breakfast waffles, which definitely lived up to the expectations I’d built from seeing all the delicious-looking pictures online.
Our whole group ordered off the set brunch menu, and we found this to be really good value. For €15 you get the house-made granola with yoghurt and fresh fruits (which was really tasty), then you can choose one of three brunch ‘main’ options, followed by one of their three delicious pancake dishes, and a drink. By the time we finished eating we were absolutely stuffed and very happy. I had also started to eye-up some of the main menu dishes being served to the tables next to us, although there’s no way I could have managed another morsel of food!
All in all, BLOOM definitely exceeded my expectations, and is up there for me as one of the best brunch places in Lisbon. I’ll definitely be going back not only for that, but also to check out some of the tasty-looking mains on offer there, as well as to sample some of the cocktails of course.
You can find BLOOM’s full menu here.
Want to know what else to do on a day out in Lisbon? Check out some of the city’s hidden gems here