Évora and the Alentejo Restaurants
We’ve compiled the best of the best in Évora and the Alentejo - browse our top choices for Restaurants during your stay.
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We’ve compiled the best of the best in Évora and the Alentejo - browse our top choices for Restaurants during your stay.
Hidden away on a narrow side street a few minutes from the main square, this family-run restaurant is the best place in town for hearty, no-nonsense grilled meats. The front part of the former wine cellar is a rustic brick bar with a pork leg mounted on the counter, and a charcoal grill nestled in the front window alcove. Walk past the bar area across a sloping, concrete floor into a cozy dining room, lined with huge terra-cotta wine jugs. The furnishings are basic—benches at planked tables—and you can expect the service to be casual, at best. Specialties include burras (pork chin), migas with wild asparagus, and sopa de cação, or dogfish soup, a hearty dish made with a bony local fish which is sometimes also called baby shark.
This rustic restaurant with red-and-white-check tablecloths and cork carvings adorning the walls serves authentic Alentejan dishes. The atmosphere is rustic, with long wooden tables for boisterous families and intimate little two-seaters tucked behind huge clay wine jugs. The house wine—literally cheaper than the bottled water—is a wonderful value and complement to any meal.
The charming elderly owner, Amor Fialho, is the third generation of Fialhos to operate this popular restaurant. He has handed off daily operations to his children, Helena and Rui, but he's still present most evenings in the kitchen, and has been known to give foreign visitors a tour, pointing out photos of the former Spanish king's visit. The dining room, with a beamed ceiling and painted plates hung on its walls, is regularly packed on weekends, and reservations are essential. Fialho's renowned specialties are borrego assado (roasted lamb) and perdiz à convento da cartuxa (roast partridge with potatoes and carrots), made according to a recipe from a nearby monastery.
If you'd like to grab a sandwich, cup of tea, or glass of wine between museum visits, there's no place better than Gadanha. You'll likely end up leaving with more than what you ate, as this deli also sells gift-wrapped gourmet treats like local ham, cheese, and chocolates. The café and shop are superb, and the restaurant in an old barn annex, with exposed wood beams and an antique hearth—is even better. Specialties include lamb croquettes with mushroom mayonaise and platters of local Alentejan cheeses. You can dine on a smattering of petiscos (tapas) or settle in for the larger main courses.
Hands down, this restaurant in a restored wine cellar near Praça da República serves the best food in Serpa, and perhaps even all of Alentejo. Huge wine barrels sit at the entrance to a traditional dining room with domed ceilings, tile floors, and antique farm implements hanging on the walls. In winter, the specialty is grilled pork; in summer, try the gazpacho, followed by the fried fish. The Serpa cheese and the Alentejo wines are good at any time of year. Keep an ear out for some cante alentejano at this restaurant.
This is the best option for a traditional Alentejan meal in Castelo de Vide. Walk through the entryway bar into a lovely domed dining room decorated like an old wine cellar. Specialties include goat and lamb roasts and dogfish soup with local chestnuts.
There's no better spot to sip a glass of wine than in the front garden of this social club in Montemor's Praça da República. In pleasant weather you'll struggle to find a seat at this see-and-be-seen establishment. The food is simple lunch fare, including thick ham-and-cheese sandwiches.
This wonderful spot serves up some of the best traditional Portuguese dishes on the entire coastline. The rustic dining room has old-fashioned Alentejan farm tools hanging on the walls, and opens up to the airy kitchen on one side and a small shop on the other that sells gourmet treats and local wines. The restaurant's name comes from owner José Ramos Cardoso, who as a boy was nicknamed "Celso" after his father, a well-known Vila Nova de Milfontes resident. Specialties include shrimp sautéed in garlic, clams with coriander, grilled fish or veal with roasted tomatoes—but you can't go wrong with anything on the menu.
The charming husband-and-wife duo of Manuel and Carolina Oliveira own and operate this tiny upscale dining room with huge taste. There are only 14 seats in the entire restaurant, creating the atmosphere of a family dining room. The tiny size makes reservations essential, and the restaurant is frequently booked solid on Friday and Saturday nights. Specialties include lamb, pork, and game dishes, created by Carolina in the open kitchen and served with a flourish by Manuel.
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