The limestone patio at Pinóquio is packed as the sun sets, nearly every table eating the same meal—pica pau. This dish is the draw for the restaurant on Praça dos Restauradores in central Lisbon: chunks of lean beef seared in fat, drenched in garlic, washed down with cold beer.

It’s the rare example of a touristy place doing food right. I drizzle the savory chunks of meat—the name means woodpecker, a reference to the toothpicks with which it typically is eaten—with the traditional piri piri oil offered at every table and polish it off, sopping the juices with crusty bread.

To learn more, I head into the kitchen. Domingos Maceira loads a small pan with a heroic amount of lard, garlic, bay leaf and beef bouillon. In this, he sears large cubes of beef, adding butter and a splash of white wine before lowering the heat to simmer for 10 minutes. The pan goes straight to the table with just a sprinkle of cilantro, a lemon wedge and a glug of olive oil. Pickled vegetables also are a common addition.

At Milk Street, we loved the balance of wine-simmered beef and bracing piri piri sauce. And we felt the pickles were an important contrast, too. So we soaked onion and Kalamata olives in sherry vinegar while we seared strip steak. While the steak rested, we sautéed garlic and jalapeño with white wine and bay, reducing the liquid to concentrate the flavor. To lighten the dish, we skipped the lard, but retained its richness by stirring in butter off heat to finish.

We returned the meat to the pan to coat, adding parsley for freshness and serving it over the onion-­olive mixture. And we highly recommend bread for sopping those juices.