The sardine grilled in Lisbon on 13 June is Sardina pilchardus. It spawns between October and April and spends the winter lean. By June it has put back a good part of its fat, and the fat does the rest.
From 1.2 to 18.4 per cent
A team led by Narciso Bandarra followed sardines landed at Peniche, month by month, from May 1994 to April 1995. The results were published in the Journal of Food Science in 1997.
Total lipid content ranged from 1.2 to 18.4 per cent of the fish's weight. The low point fell in March and April, right after spawning. The high point came in September and October, after months of feeding on plankton.
It is the same animal with seventeen percentage points between its worst month and its best.
June is a decision of the calendar
IPMA places the fat build-up between late spring and mid autumn. Strictly speaking, the fattest sardine of the year is caught in September and October.
June is the month when the fish has stopped being lean and the city has a reason to light the grills. The Lisbon calendar does the rest.
A proverb pins the date down: no São João pinga a sardinha no pão, on Saint John's day the sardine drips onto the bread. Saint John's day is 24 June.
The closed season
Sardine fishing in Portugal closes between December and April, with dates that shift according to the stretch of coast. In 2026 it reopened at midnight on 4 May, under Despacho n.º 5288/2026.
The Iberian stock is managed jointly by Portugal and Spain. For 2026 the combined limit was set at 50,294 tonnes, of which 33,446 went to the Portuguese fleet.
Each vessel fishes a maximum of 180 days a year, with a two-day stop every week. Between Nazaré and Lisbon that stop runs from Saturday at noon to Monday at noon.
The minimum landing size is 11 centimetres. If more than 30 per cent of a catch is made up of sardines under 13 centimetres, the area closes in real time.
Ninety-eight per cent of Portuguese sardine comes from purse-seine fishing, with around 130 vessels working out of eight ports: Matosinhos, Aveiro, Figueira da Foz, Peniche, Sesimbra, Sines, Portimão and Olhão.
13 June
Fernando Martins de Bulhões was born in Lisbon around 1195 and died in Padua on 13 June 1231. He was canonised on 30 May 1232, less than a year later.
13 June is a municipal holiday in Lisbon. The marchas populares were first organised in 1932 by José Leitão de Barros, of Notícias Ilustrado, and have come down Avenida da Liberdade since 1952.
The Casamentos de Santo António, the mass weddings, began in 1958 with 36 couples at the cathedral. They stopped in 1974 and the city council brought them back in 2004, inside the Festas de Lisboa.
Why it is eaten on bread
Before crockery was common, medieval Europe served meat and fish on thick slices of bread. The slice was called a trencher, talhador in Portuguese. It soaked up the juices and was eaten last, or handed to someone with less.
A sardine on the grill gives off fat. The slice underneath catches all of it, and there are people who eat the sardine mainly for the bread.
In Porto and the north the slice is broa, maize bread. In Lisbon it is wheat bread. At the street parties the reason adds itself: you eat standing up, in the street, with no plate, no knife and no fork.
The story that traces the custom to a tavern on Lisbon's Ribeira has no historical record behind it.
How to pick a good one
DECO PROteste lists four signs. Skin very shiny and free of discolouration. Eye bulging, cornea clear, pupil black and round. Gills red, never brownish. Flesh firm and springy to the touch.
The smell should be of the tide and little else. Ammonia, rancidity or sourness are enough to put the fish back.
Sardines spoil quickly. Buy and grill on the same day. In the coldest part of the fridge they keep for one day, and freezing needs minus 18 degrees or lower.
Coarse salt the night before, a double grill, low embers and no flame touching the fish. The expression puxar a brasa à sua sardinha, pulling the embers towards your own sardine, comes from this.
Thirteen a second
EGEAC estimates that Lisbon eats about 13 sardines a second during the festivals, more than a million across the days of the arraiais.
In June 2026 sardines left the fish market at around 2 euros a kilo and reached retail between 7 and 8.40 euros. At the street parties a sardine on bread reached 5 euros.
Between the Peniche auction and an Alfama grill the price multiplies three or four times, and it is still the cheapest thing you can eat standing in a Lisbon street on 13 June.
Fado ao Carmo has two fado houses in Lisbon, in Chiado and in Alfama, with different menus. The Alfama house sits in the quarter where the June festivals are at their loudest. Tables can be booked here.