The Fantastic World Of Portuguese Sardines — Specialty Store in Chiado, Lisbon

This is a branch of the Mundo Fantástico da Sardinha Portuguesa chain, and the Chiado shop on Praça Dom Pedro IV is the one you meet on the way through the square: a shopfront of bright lights and painted circus graphics that reads as a toy store before you notice what is actually on the shelves.

Inside, the display is the point. Carousel horses, a wheel and a throne sit among walls of tins, and the cans themselves are printed with circus ornaments and colour. Beyond sardines there is tinned octopus, mackerel, mussels, squid, shrimp, tuna and sea bream, so the range is broader than the name suggests.

The buying decision comes down to two things. Tins stamped with a birth year or a historical date, each with a fact about that year, are the souvenir to take home; the rest of the shelves are for anyone who actually wants to eat what they buy. Staff talk you through the different preparations and hand out a leaflet in your language.

Prices are the friction. A single can runs from roughly €7 to €15, and up to €50 for the decorative ones, which is a lot for 125g of fish. Go earlier in the day and samples are out, which lets you taste before committing to a stack of tins. The shop stays open until 10:30 pm every day, so an evening pass costs nothing but time.

One practical warning worth having: the tins are fine in checked baggage, not in a carry-on under the 3-1-1 rule, whatever you are told at the counter. Come for the room and the packaging, buy one dated tin as a gift, and treat the rest as theatre.