Bairro Petersham Portuguese Food and Wine Festival

On Sunday, TheBloke and I made our second pilgrimage up the road to the annual Bairro Petersham Portuguese Food and Wine Festival.


The festival has been running since time began (or for nearly a decade), and brings the amazing food and culture of the local enclave to the streets. Last year it rained. This year, despite some ominous looking clouds, it was mostly fine all day, which made the event much more conducive to indulgence in cheap and cheerful Portuguese cask red and Sagres beer.


Audley and Fisher Streets were closed off and instead of cars parking to get to the train station, the bitumen was filled with happy masses and food stalls.

I set my sights high when I woke up on Sunday morning. All I wanted to achieve for the day was a barbecued sardine and a chorizo in my tummy. Luckily there was plenty of both available, although I did have to contend with a dimwitted security guard commenting that my plate "looks good... if you're a cat" whilst waiting for TheBloke to buy us some drinks. Speaking of which, his sights were set on eating the chunks of meat on sticks pictured on the back grill above. Deliciously rustic!

Most of the stalls were selling variations on grilled meatstuffs, cornbread, bolinos de bacalhau (cod cakes) and feijoada (dried beef stew). We eschewed the huge line in front of the prawn and chilli sauce grill joint that seems to be at every food and wine festival we attend; and hit up a smaller stall for our chorizo fix. It turned out to be a good move, because instead of a stock standard commercial sausage, we ended up with a handmade work of snag art, filled with chunks of pork belly.

Unfortunately, our late arrival time (2pm) meant that we missed out on churros. First come, first served! We pacified ourselves with a plate of malasadas for the road.


An impromptu round of singing, clapping and dancing broke out as we were leaving. Accompanied by an accordian, nonetheless. Saúde!