Where to eat in the Algarve, Portugal

esquina restaurante & bar in Burgau

Burgau is one of those small fishing villages, west of Lagos, which is reminiscent of the Cornish coastline with the houses nestling at the base of the cliffs and up the steep roads to the top of the cliffs. It has seen some quite heavy construction in the last five years or so and all of that building is at the top to the east and west of the centre of the village. Although, it is impossible to spoil the beach area and centre of the village, Burgau is now much larger than before. Has Burgau lost some its original character? Well, that's for everyone to decide for themselves but outside of the very busy holiday periods, it is possible to ignore all the new apartments so it is still one of my favourite places!

Burgau's newest restaurant sits on Rua Principal at the top of Rua da Praia, which is the left hand steep road as you stand at the bus shelter facing the beach. It is run by Jorge, who is Portuguese and Natasha who is English so for those of us with no Portuguese to speak of, we are saved again.

We went on a Friday evening at the end of March by 8:30pm every table was taken. Although the previous evening had been very quiet, it is probably wise to book here even in those out of season months. The restaurant seats 28 and has crisp white tablecloths, the modern white crockery so popular at the moment and a friendly ambience. There are two hatches through to the kitchen so you can watch your meal being prepared from several tables.

We were served with the usual couverte of bread, butter, lovely black and green olives and carrots in lots of garlic. For our starters John, predictably, chose fish soup - his barometer for a restaurant and I decided on Choriço a casa which, as I hoped, came sliced and fried and was delicious. The fish soup passed muster too but was a little different from the norm, being a rather sophisticated buttery/creamy soup with flaked fish and parsley, rather than the usual tomato base.  We had also chosen the wine by this time too and, as usual, we decided on the house red - Couteiro-mor 2006 from the Alentejo.  Also, as usual, it was good so our record of never having been given an inferior house red remains intact.

For our main courses John had Portuguese steak which, on this occasion, came with bacon and sauté potato rounds but no gravy and I chose the fish of the day which was Dover Sole, grilled and served with broccoli, cauliflower, peas, carrots and sauté potatoes.  We polished off our meals and the wine and enjoyed everything.

We didn't really need to but the puddings were very tempting and we succumbed to Almond tart with vanilla ice cream and two spoons!  We finished with coffees having enjoyed our meal and the cost for the two of us was €57.20.  

Reservations (00351) 282 695545

Maggie & John 2008

If you would like to know more about Portuguese Food and Drink, why don't you dip into our Restaurants in the Algarve section and our series of articles on Portuguese Wines and Ports.  We also feature some Traditional Portuguese Recipes and a glossary of useful Portuguese food & drink words and phrases

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