Azeitao cheese

I climb the steep Calçada da Glória by the funicular railway tracks, my leather soles slipping off marble cobbles that are like uneven cubes of volcanic ice. One foot goes and I grab the broken rail. This dramatic urban gorge slices through the old town of Lisbon. Graffiti covers the walls in spaghetti swirling scrawls of spray-can anarchist colour. I meet Parker outside Alfaia. The aluminium chair is on such a gradient that, as I sit, I slide into its back.

A selection of cheese, ham and olives is brought to the table. It is worth going to Lisbon just to eat Azeitao cheese. The ancient, muslin-wrapped rind looks like the skin of an Egyptian mummy. The top has been sliced off and a tiny spoon stands in the runny interior. It is made in Portugal's highest mountains from raw, unpasteurised ewe's milk, using Cardoon thistle instead of rennet. We dribble it like honey over the fresh bread, the sweet pungency dilating our nostrils as it coats the roof of our mouths. A purple plate of octopus appears, peppered with a mild chilli. Parker's dad is a botanist and he tells me about the Scoville scale, which is used to grade the heat of chillies. A jalapeno is around 3,000, a bell pepper is zero. What we're eating would just make a couple of hundred.

On our right is the window of the kitchen. Rows of silvery bass stare past us at the sun-faded photographs of last year's hair-dos in the hairdresser's window over the street. The chef sees us and sticks thumb and forefinger into the eyes of a pointy-snouted sea salmon, holding it up for us to see, gaping the gills like a floppy grin.

We order fish. The Caldeirada de peixes do mar is different sea fish sliced into pieces to be cooked in tomato, onion, garlic, white wine, peppers, together with potatoes. Crude chunks of unknown fish swim in a sauce that tastes as if it has simmered overnight. In case the deep yellow potatoes have not absorbed every flavour, there are soppy slices of bread at the bottom, under the bones. We scrape the last dribble of Azeitao from the rind. We drip the last drop of red wine. The cobbles seem slippier on the way down.

· The writer is the lead singer with Franz Ferdinand