Review of a two-star Michelin restaurant

It was an intentionally theatrical experience. Apart from the food, one real highlight was when the whole glass 'wall' window descended into the floor so that we were suddenly sitting on the shoreline we had just been looking at a moment before. Spectacular! The wines were all amazingly different from one another, very interesting and the food was remarkable, really delicious and full of many flavours together. The staff performance was a bit over the top but I recognise that other people might love that. To me they acted sometimes creepily familiar, other times remote and absent. The Sommelier went through his 'routine' as if he had done it too many times before (which he had done, of course) and I felt some sympathy with how obvious it was that he did not enjoy his job. The predominant feeling both of us were left with though, at the end of the evening, was anger.

The cost of this meal was colossal. As if that wasn’t bad enough, when the bill came, it said at the bottom that service was not included! The only restaurant in Portugal we came across that made a point of service charges, as if it could not afford to properly remunerate its staff. I know I only reveal my vulgarity by mentioning money but what is going on there is a rich man’s pretence. Earlier that same day, we had found ourselves lost on a rutted backroad and were met by a small, wizened farmer, deeply browned by the sun. He was driving his battered truck down the way we were going and advised us to turn around because the road up ahead would damage our car. We did turn around and drove back, only to find him pulled in and stopped in a side road. He flagged us down and with no English and a sparse collection of teeth, he tried to persuade us to come to his home to eat and to sleep. Why pay the stupid town prices, I’m sure he argued. Over and over he assured us that he and his wife would look after us. We were tempted, only for the thought that leaving again would be almost impossible and with no language in common, we could give nothing in return except money. Anyway, we were booked in somewhere else that night. Just imagine that that farmer was told that the two foreigners who, for a moment had seemed to waver in their determination not to accept his hospitality, had gone on to the city and spent that kind of money, just on a meal. I think it would have been beyond his comprehension. We do not want to be that kind of rich. The choreography of the staff in the restaurant was next to impeccable but their performance was totally devoid of soul. That is what money does. It is like a vampire. It is sucking the world dry.