My Alfama breakfast ritual, reluctantly shared

I've lived in Lisbon three years and gate-kept Café Azul for all of them. Fine. Here it is.

It's a narrow room in Alfama with a marble counter, a hissing machine, and a case of pastéis de nata that sell out by 10:30 on weekends. The senhora who runs it will remember your order on your third visit and your name on your fifth. The pastéis come warm when the timing is kind — shattering pastry, custard barely set, cinnamon if you know to ask.

A bica and two pastéis runs €3.40. You stand at the counter, or you take the single outdoor table and watch the tram grind up the hill. That's it. That's the review.

Go before ten, go on a weekday, and if the warm batch is coming out in five minutes, wait the five minutes.