Please note, FRHappy is now closed. Time Out Food editors, January 2017.
On paper, Porto’s signature dish, the francesinha, is the sandwich of dreams – layers of every kind of salty meat in soft white bread that’s drenched first with a cheesy béchamel sauce and second with a spicy tomato and beer sauce. On a plate in front of you it’s about as tempting as a Rustler burger in a petrol station. But I had high hopes in London’s first restaurant dedicated to the dish. If you swap processed ham for ethically farmed fillings, it should be a meat feast to remember, right?
Well, sort of. This is a sandwich that tastes good but it’s really not the triumph Porto makes it out to be, and this version is only as tasty as the sum of its parts. More desirable was the chilled white port – a Portuguese speciality that I’m right behind as it’s basically an excuse for dessert wine before dinner – and the country’s finest export, the crispy, custard-filled pastel de nata. Sandwich obsessives might want to tick the francesinha off their carb-heavy to-do lists, but everyone else should stick to the custard tarts.