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This San Jose Restaurant Has Been Feeding Portuguese Immigrants for Nearly 80 Years

Octavio Peña
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A bowl of Portuguese salt cod with bechamel, served alongside a mount of rice and salad.
Bacalhau in bechamel — one of the many versions of the Portuguese salt cod customers can find at Bacalhau Grill. The restaurant and market has been open in San Jose's Little Portugal neighborhood since 1945. (Octavio Peña)

In the heart of San Jose’s Little Portugal, a grocery store the size of a 7-Eleven features a wall of Ports and Vinho Verdes, stacks of garlicky linguiça and cases of imported cheese. But Bacalhau Grill isn’t just a specialty food market. If you peek over the shelves, you’ll see a full-fledged restaurant dining room with tables covered with checkered tablecloths. On a recent Friday afternoon, one diner was making quick work of a plate of picanha and fries while a couple split a pizza over a bottle of wine. A bakery display case was filled with flaky pastel de nata and Brazilian-style empanadas.

“It’s the most complete [Portuguese] market in California,” says owner Mauricio da Silva.

Bacalhau Grill has been feeding the city’s Portuguese families since 1945, when the original owners, John and Lucile Rose, opened it under the name Trade Rite Market. The Brazilian component to the store wouldn’t be added until the late 90s. Over the years, the shop has also come to function as a cherished gathering place for the South Bay’s Portuguese and Brazilian communities.

These days, San Jose is known as one of the Bay Area’s most vibrant immigrant hubs, with locally famous Vietnamese, Mexican and Ethiopian food scenes. In comparison, Little Portugal — and the fact that San Jose is home to one of the largest and oldest Portuguese communities on the West Coast — flies relatively under the radar. Davide Vieira from San Jose’s nonprofit Portuguese Organization for Social Services and Opportunities explains that California’s earliest Portuguese immigrants jumped off whaling ships and landed in San Francisco, lured by the Gold Rush, as early as the 1830s. The opening of the Five Wounds Portuguese National Parish in East San Jose in 1919 served as an anchor for the local Portuguese community. Around it, Little Portugal flourished with businesses like Trade Rite Market, which catered to some of San Jose’s earliest Portuguese families.

“It’s one of the lone existing businesses from that era in Little Portugal,” Vieira says.

Exterior facade of a restaurant and market. The sign above reads "Bacalhau Grill."
The market’s original name was Trade Rite Market. It didn’t start selling Brazilian foods until the late 1990s. (Octavio Peña)

The store was eventually passed down to John and Lucile’s son, Harold Vieira, and his wife Elaine. Since then, it has transferred ownership several times. Up until the ’80s, it was strictly a grocery store. The restaurant aspect, along with the name “Bacalhau Grill,” didn’t come about until after the business was sold out of the family.

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The restaurant is probably best known for its namesake dish, bacalhau, a salt cod many consider to be the national dish of Portugal. At Bacalhau Grill, you can select a precise cut of the fish at the butcher counter for use in home cooking, or enjoy it tossed with onions, garlic and peppers or coated in a bechamel sauce. The salting and drying procedure maintains the cod’s tender flakiness while concentrating its fishy flavor. The shop also operates a bakery where they make pastel de nata — bite-size tarts filled with caramelized egg custard.

“Our shoppers are mostly Brazilian and Portuguese,” says restaurant manager Sidinaldo Silva. “A lot of people come for the market, but stop by first for lunch or dinner.” The menu is evenly split between Portuguese and Brazilian dishes, which share many similarities due to Portugal’s lengthy colonization of Brazil. Sidinaldo explains that Bacalhau Grill’s goal is to offer a more affordable dining experience compared to the area’s upscale Portuguese restaurants and Brazilian steakhouses. All of the food feels very much like you’re eating at someone’s house — it’s all served homestyle, with sides like rice and beans.

Cheesy fried pastry on checkered paper.
The chicken and cheese pastel is one of the restaurant’s popular Brazilian pastries. (Octavio Peña)

While you won’t see any servers walking around with a towering steak skewer, the restaurant’s Brazilian menu does revolve around picanha, a cut of sirloin with a fat cap. “We’re importing a lot of steak from Brazil. There’s so many Brazilian steakhouses around — we’re in the middle,” Sidinaldo says. “You can have a great steak at a fair price.” For a complete traditional meal, order the Brazilian Experience platter, which comes with picanha, toscana sausage, grilled cheese curds, fried yucca, fried banana and farofa. Another highlight is the chicken and cheese pasteles, a crackly pastry with an exterior similar to a bubbly fried wonton. Pair your meal with a can of Guaraná Antarctica, a popular Brazilian soda made from the seeds of the tropical guaraná fruit.

Bacalhau Grill’s newest venture is the Brazilian pizzeria they opened inside the restaurant in February. The pizzas are topped with ingredients from Brazil like calabresa sausage and catupiry, a Brazilian processed cheese with a consistency similar to cream cheese. Another typical Brazilian pizza comes dressed up with corn, peas, palm hearts, oregano and olives.

The shop also makes traditional fresh tropical juices, the most unique of which is made from cashew fruit. Its nutty flavor tastes a bit like a cross between bell pepper and mango.

If Little Portugal is a monument to the history of San Jose’s Portuguese community, then Bacalhau Grill serves as the neighborhood’s food-centric hub. It provides the flavors of home and a familiar place to sit down for a meal, for both recent immigrants and families who have been in the city for generations. And it also invites those who are unfamiliar with the cuisine to explore and try something new.

“We aren’t only cooking for Portuguese and Brazilian people,” says Sidinaldo. “Everybody loves this food.”

Bacalhau Grill (1555 Alum Rock Avenue, San Jose) is open daily 9 a.m to 9 p.m. The kitchen opens at 11 a.m.

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