Gazela, Hot dog restaurant near São João National Theatre, Porto, Portugal
Gazela is a small restaurant and pub in central Porto, known for its cachorrinho, a grilled bread roll filled with sausage and melted cheese. The menu is short and built around this single dish, served alongside fries and drinks.
Gazela has been operating for decades in the same spot at the heart of Porto, keeping the same simple focus throughout. A visit by chef Anthony Bourdain brought it international attention, and photographs of that moment still hang on the walls today.
The cachorrinho, the hot bread with sausage that this place is known for, is a Porto street food tradition with its own local identity. The name means little dog in Portuguese, a playful nod to the English word hotdog.
The place is open on weekdays and Saturdays but closed on Sundays, so it is worth checking before you go. Midday and early evening tend to draw the most people, and visiting outside those windows usually means less waiting.
The bread is cooked with butter on a press in the style of a panini, which gives it a golden crust that is quite different from a standard hotdog bun. This small detail in the preparation makes the texture noticeably different from what most visitors might expect.
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