Mar Bravo Restaurant

On the promenade square

The restaurant of the Hotel Mar Bravo occupies the ground floor of the hotel, on Praça Sousa Oliveira, the square that opens onto the promenade and the beach in the centre of the Praia. The dining room is glassed in, with tables by the picture windows and the slope of the Sítio behind. At the entrance there is a tank with live lobsters and spiny lobsters. It is open every day of the year, from 12:00 to 22:30 with the kitchen never closing, and you do not need to sleep in the hotel to eat.

What to order

It is a seafood restaurant, and the menu makes that clear. There is fish by weight, priced according to market: sea bass, sole, gilthead bream, grouper, redfish and cardeal. Shellfish is also by weight: lobster and spiny lobster from the coast, boiled, grilled or in rice, prawns, stuffed spider crab and oysters.

The sharing dishes are the strong point. The seafood rice, with lobster, prawn, clam, mussel and spider crab, costs €28 for one and €50 for two. The fish and seafood cataplana has the same prices. The soupy prawn rice and the seafood açorda, the thick bread soup with coriander so typical of this coast, cost €22 for one and €39 for two. For two there are also seafood platters, at €85 and €105.

If you are after something shorter, there are starters such as clams à Bulhão Pato (€18), garlic prawns (€14.50) or octopus salad (€14.50), and fish soup (€4.50) and shellfish cream (€5.50). Among the dishes: octopus, cod and squid à lagareiro (€22), grilled tuna (€18) and a portion of sardines in season (€15). The cover charge, with bread, the house tuna pâté, olives and butter, is billed separately: refuse what you do not want.

When to go

With the kitchen open all day, it is the solution if you arrive late for lunch, for example after a surf lesson or a trip up to the Sítio. At sunset, the dining room faces west. Book by phone, by email or online; they accept groups.