Four Family Rooms, One Dinner, Ending at the Clérigos

Dinner in four courses at four different addresses, over three and a half hours, with twelve people at most. What holds it together is that every venue is run by a family, and you meet them.

You start at a tavern on Rua de Cimo de Vila where a father and son work the room and talk about football and the neighbourhood. The first course is broa de Avintes, the dense dark rye-and-maize bread from the parish across the river that keeps for a week and goes almost black, with ham and a glass of green wine.

The walk between courses takes in Rua de Santa Catarina and the Belle Époque front of the Café Majestic, and a mural of the Age of Discoveries that lets the guide put dates to what Portugal was doing when the wine trade here started.

Course two is at a place run by two brothers on Rua do Bonjardim: caldo verde, the potato and kale soup that is the country's default comfort food, a bifana, which is pork marinated and stacked in a bread roll and which Porto has strong opinions about, and a cold beer.

The third is the francesinha, on Praça de Dom João I, and by that point the sequence has been designed to prepare you for it.

The last is two sisters, in a room done up as Porto in the 1920s, in the middle of the nightlife district: tomato rice, codfish cakes, a glass of white and Nata do Céu for dessert. You pass the Galerias de Paris on the way there, which by then is filling up.

Seven food tastings and three drinks in total. It ends at the Clérigos tower.

English-speaking local guide. Minimum two guests. Children under four join free without food. Stops and dishes vary by day and season. Vegetarian and gluten-free can usually be arranged by email or a booking note, but the tour is not suitable for anyone with severe food allergies.