Restaurante O Buque

It happened this week, after driving round Portimão and seeing just how terribly sad the town has become. On crossing the bridge, this restaurant beckoned like a welcoming oasis, while the sun shone, the Arade river flowed through its beautiful estuary, seagulls soared overhead and the far-off hills of Monchique completed a scene that was much too lovely to contain so many problems.

This place has been going for three decades. I didn’t know that when I walked in. I simply knew that Duck Rice, Salt Cod “à brás” (with scrambled egg and chips), and grilled mackerel and chicken were on offer for only €7.50. The tables here still have the colourful fabric tablecloths of yesteryear; the dining room is cosy and light floods in through the windows fronting onto the road.

High up, there are shelves stacked with venerable old bottles of wine – the sort you’d expect in a collection. The oldest is a Montes Claros, 1954, and right above my head is a vintage from 1972. It was the restaurant’s founder, Joaquim Mourinho (yes, a cousin of the famous football trainer), now deceased, who began the collection, 30 years ago.

Meantime, my salt cod arrives at the table, as if it had been specially made at home. With each piece of bread I remembered why I loved this troubled land so much – and through the window, watched streams of German cars pass by, part of a promotional campaign. It was as if a large governmental committee had just descended on the tiny social cooperative of Parchal.

But, in the end, it’s a low-speed version of the European dream that passes by – and I hear the head waiter telling an elderly couple at the next door table that when he came here from Coimbra in 1972, Caramujeira was producing a delicious sweet wine. Times gone by… Then, out of the blue, I am introduced to Vasco Belbute, 48, son of the original owner, a squire of the bric-a-brac market, who tells me some wonderful stories.

Did you know, for instance, that the rusty keys of interior doors of the Leaning Tower of Pisa were once on sale in an Algarve flea market for €250??! They are now, apparently, in an Italian museum, and worth a fortune! Well, this is what the man who has an enormous collection of old bottles, bronzes and antiquities tells me. He even lets slip that he had planned to transform this restaurant into a bric-a-brac emporium. Thank goodness he didn’t! We need to keep some of the good things alive here. Even if it’s only hope…

Specialities: charcoal grills, traditional Portuguese dishes; Bill: €7.50; Management: Ana Clipei; NIF 237 752 638.