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algarve
78 THOMAS COOK TRAVEL
GO
Thomas Cook flies to Faro between April
and October from select UK airports.
For more information, visit your local
Thomas Cook store, call +44 (0)844 412
5966 or visit thomascook.com.
For hassle-free travel to Gatwick
Airport, visit gatwickexpress.co.uk.
STAY
The five-star Tivoli Marina Vilamoura
(thomascook.com) sits on the resort’s
famous marina, has its own private
beach and is within walking distance of
Vilamoura’s fabulous restaurants. And
after all that eating, why not pamper
yourself in the hotel’s Angsana Spa?
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: VILA JOYA
RESTAURANT’S LUSH GARDENS;
ANCHOVIES AT ESTAMINÉ RESTAURANT;
WEIGHING UP AT THE TRADITIONAL
FISH MARKET IN OLHÃO
really my thing unless they’re edible – but
the pay off was well worth it once we landed
on the milk white shore to discover Estaminé
(+385 917 811 856, ilha-deserta.com). The
head chef Isabel Vargas and her husband
have owned the place for some 20 years,
and it boasts one of the most spectacular
locations for a restaurant I have ever seen.
This really is, as the name suggests,
a deserted island. Having an almost captive
audience, you would understand if these
guys did the bare minimum to please on the
food front, but I can tell you with utter joy
that this was some of the most accomplished
cooking I had the pleasure of eating in the
Algarve and for quite some time, elsewhere:
firm salted anchovies, sweet olive oil with
warm bread, small prawns so fresh you could
taste the sea water, dried tuna carpaccio, sea
bass caught that very morning and cooked
over a charcoal pit and, my favourite, a clam
and rice dish that I will probably return to
the Algarve for alone.
If I could offer just three pieces of advice
for your trip to the Algarve, they would be
these: to lose yourself over a seafood lunch,
hunt down a cataplana and devour it over
a long dinner, and, if João decides that it’s
time for the Portuguese grappa to go round…
run for the hills!
Adam Byatt is the chef and owner of London’s
Trinity (trinityrestaurant.co.uk) and Bistro
Union (bistrounion.co.uk) restaurants. His
first cookbook, How To Eat In, (£16, Bantam
Press) is available now from amazon.co.uk.
KNOW THIS
Visit in early August when the Festival
do Marisco (festivaldomarisco.com),
or seafood festival, takes over Olhão’s
Jardim Pescador Olhanense. Local
fishermen show off their catch and
you can sample a range of delicacies
from fried prawns to cataplana.