Digital menus for restaurants in Lisbon

Who sits at a Lisbon table

In 2024, 81.6% of nights in tourist accommodation in Greater Lisbon were spent by non-residents, according to Statistics Portugal (INE). What sets Lisbon apart is not only the number but the mix: it was the region least dependent on any single market. The largest, the United States, accounted for 15.9% of foreign guests’ nights, and the top three together for 32.7% — in the Algarve the top three pass 57%.

Almost half of all American nights in Portugal (49.5%) were spent in Greater Lisbon, and the region also took 24.4% of Spanish and 18.2% of German nights. In practice a restaurant in the Baixa, Alfama or Belém cannot pick one foreign language: it has to serve several at the same time.

Which languages a Lisbon menu needs

English is a must in practice — it is the shared language of visitors from the US, the UK, Northern Europe and many other markets. Then Spanish and French. Portuguese always stays, because locals are still everyday customers and because the dish names are Portuguese.

With Platerio the menu can be published in up to 30 languages — from English and Spanish to German, Chinese or Japanese — translated automatically from your original menu. It opens in the language of the guest’s phone when you offer it, and switches with one tap. The free plan includes two languages — in Lisbon, Portuguese and English are the minimum; paid plans allow all 30.

Lisbon dishes that need explaining

A good menu for visitors keeps the dish name and explains it in one line. In Lisbon that matters for dishes such as bacalhau à Brás (born in the Bairro Alto; few visitors know it comes with egg and matchstick potatoes), amêijoas à Bulhão Pato, the prego steak roll, or the grilled sardines that fill menus in June, during the Santos Populares festivities.

The pastel de nata needs no introduction, but it does need its allergens: gluten, egg and milk. Each dish page gives a ready explanation in four languages to adapt to your recipe.

Allergens: what ASAE expects

Decreto-Lei 26/2016 requires restaurants to state the substances that cause allergies or intolerances on a medium the customer can easily understand. In a city where most guests do not read Portuguese, that means having allergens in the language of whoever asks. In Platerio each dish can carry the 14 EU allergens, but they only show to guests after you confirm them.

How to put the menu online

The steps are the same for a tasca in Mouraria and a hotel restaurant in Chiado:

• Upload the menu you already have: a PDF, photos of the paper menu, a spreadsheet or your website link.
• The AI sorts sections, dishes and prices; prices it cannot read are left blank for you to confirm.
• Review the translations and dish explanations, and confirm the allergens.
• Publish and print the QR code — or make one with our free QR code generator.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• INE — Estatísticas do Turismo 2024
• Decreto-Lei n.º 26/2016, de 9 de junho (Diário da República)