Vasku's Grill

• Anjos (Linha Verde)
• €€€
• R. Passos Manuel 30, 1150-053

Despite the old buildings and traditional way of life, Lisbon's culinary scene is modernising at a rapid pace. With endless flavours from afar and menus to appeal to the global rich, you can find almost any kind of meal you want. Along with this expansion of plates, has come corporate expansion and Fullest Group are leading the charge here. With 14 brands under its ownership, Fullest has brought some of the city's more historic names into its portfolio, including Vasku's Grill, a steakhouse serving the residents of Anjos for well over thirty years.

This surprisingly small dining room, belies the size of its ownership, yet it simply lent itself to a more intimate and cozy dining experience. With the couvert and plate of presunto already on the table as is often traditional in a Portuguese restaurant, we sent the bread and olives back to the kitchen but settled into the luscious slices of nutty pork, each slice a reminder of the joys of high grade fat.

Knowing the restaurant's fame for meat, we requested some of the croquettes also to share as a starter. Considering we've already made the coquettish joke, we can refrain from repeating bad puns. However one thing that we will repeat time and again, is ordering these braised beef bombs. With flakey, flavoursome beef moulded throughout the fried crust, these croquettes stand out in a city where you can buy them every 50 metres.

There's limited reason for coming to Vaskus if you're not ordering the steak, so we loaded ourselves up with their plate of grilled picanha. Naturally it was delicious in the way chargrilled beef always tends to be, but this is a low bar to reach for steak and we feel it's more good than it was great.

We rounded the meal off with a creme brulee as is customary, and as we lack all objectivity on this dish, we declare it a legend of the ouvre. All washed down with a lovely bottle of red wine from the Dão region Vaskus is certainly a dependable and pleasant steak house, although coming it at over €100 for two people, it could be elevating itself more for the money. But then we guess this is what happens when Big Hospitality takes over.

Drinks: A bottle of wine, still water and coffees

Don’t forget to order: Those beef croquettes!