Restaurante-bar The Fat Frog

In France and the French-speaking world, a“brasserie” is a kind of restaurant with a relaxed but refined atmosphere. One that serves simple dishes and other types of food. The word also means bistro… and the idea here is to recreate a typical French bistro.

There’s a smoker’s section right at the bar, near the entrance and inside, the dining room at the rear is decorated to perfection: linen tablecloths, French reproduction paintings on the walls and blackboards announcing the day’s specials. In fact, there’s nothing missing: it’s all ready for showtime! The host arrives with a large blackboard and personally took us through the dishes of the day.

For starters we had the choice of cream of spinach soup, sauteed prawns with whisky, mushrooms in garlic or mozzarella cheese with tomatoes. For the main course, there were four options: we chose the ribs with new potatoes, while our company chose the sole. The cook himself serves us our starters, while Sr Manuel Laginha continued to welcome clients. Of course, the fact that we started by taking photographs piqued his interest.

Curious, he came to talk to us – and we discovered that he has a long and interesting history, choc-full of anecdotes. We ask him where his perfect French came from, and he tells us that he was born and raised in Normandy. Early on he joined the special forces (Commandos), and travelled the world. And then he discovered that he felt most at home in the Algarve…

He opened this restaurant eight years ago, and has a Scottish partner. In spite of all the economic difficulties, he has a regular clientele of foreign residents, French people and Portuguese. At the end of our meal, we sweeten things with dessert and share a typical crème brulée (a rich creamy version of Portuguese “pudim flan”)

Open from 11am to 11pm, you can stop here just for a drink, or for a snack. If for the latter, you should try the baguettes, or tapas – and you’ll never be stuck for company or laughs if you start talking with Sr Laginha (“Manu” to his friends…)