This is the book to change the way you look at Portuguese tinned fish forever.

Can the Can restaurant and the National Association of the Canned Fish Industry (ANICP) came together in the project THE BEST I(N) CAN to present a series of dishes that make the absolute most of what this traditional quality product has to offer.

The project saw CAN THE CAN team creating a new dish made using products from a different canning company every month, and inviting a range of Portuguese musicians and bands to join in the delicious experience.

The result is a unique collection of signature dishes based on canned fish – a thoroughly Portuguese delicacy with a fascinating, sometimes dramatic history. THE BEST I(N) CAN… for you to enjoy the best you can.

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Features & Stories

Consuming Passions: Sardines

Di Murrell celebrates the humblest of fish and its dual appeal “My love affair with fresh sardines began quite late on when we lived in France and, strangely enough, my fondness for the tinned sort was rekindled there too. Strange, because in both cases we were in regions that had little to do with the sea.”

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Chris Bulow

Pig enthusiast

We both love the food of Portugal — possibly even more than that from their close Iberian neighbour (sorry San Sebastián) — so I was tempted to put one of my favourite’s, “Lisboeta” by Nuno Mendes, into this top-10 list but this quite short alternative choice works better for how I now choose to cook and eat. Less self-consciously “food for the beautiful people” than ex-Chiltern Firehouse’ Mendes, it’s produced by a Lisbon restaurant collective who take the cornucopia of sea-food that’s been pulled from the Atlantic and then preserved in tins in this way there for centuries and, via a group of local cooking stars, offer great takes on how best to present them. If you didn’t love sardines before you start (and if you don’t, why are you even here?), by the end you’ll be ordering cases of the shiny things.