Café Janis

Café Janis is one of those places that solves an entire day. It opens for coffee and brunch, drifts through lunch, and by evening has become a wine bar with a proper kitchen still running. The corner site on Rua da Moeda has pavement tables that catch the sun for most of the day, and the room inside is warm and slightly worn in the right way.

The brunch is good without being pious about it — eggs done properly, decent bread, pastries, coffee that has had some thought applied. Later on the menu shifts to small plates: cured meats, cheese, something with fish, a couple of vegetable dishes that are better than they need to be. The wine list is short, mostly Portuguese, and priced so you have a second glass without a debate.

The reason to know about it is flexibility. It is the answer when you do not know whether you want breakfast, lunch or a drink, or when you have people arriving at different times, or when the plan collapses and you need somewhere pleasant to sit for three hours.

Honest notes: because it does everything, it is not the best in the city at any single thing — the brunch is beaten by the brunch specialists and the wine list by the wine bars. The terrace is small and fills fast on sunny days. And Cais do Sodré at night is a noisy neighbourhood, which reaches the outside tables. For an easy, all-day room in a good location, though, it is genuinely useful.