The Long Lunch

There's a restaurant in Cabanas called Noelia e Jeronimo. No terrace overlooking the sea, no particularly dramatic setting. Just an unassuming place on the harbour front run by a self-taught chef who has become something of a legend in this part of Portugal. Some of the country's top chefs drive out from Lisbon to eat there. It's booked weeks in advance in winter. Most visitors to the Algarve have never heard of it.

I had lunch there recently with someone who'd been living in the east Algarve for about six months. She'd done the obvious things, the markets in Olhao, the beaches everyone recommends, the seafood restaurants with the sea views and the laminated menus. She'd enjoyed all of it and was curious to see what else was out there, the way most people are once they've worked through the well known list.

We sat for a long time. She ordered clams from the Ria Formosa, a rice dish that arrived looking very simple and tasted like considerable effort. I found a local wine I'd had before and wanted her to try. The kind of meal where you don't check your phone because there's no reason to.

Conversation moved around naturally. Her life before Portugal, what had surprised her about living here, whether she'd been to Cacela Velha yet. She hadn't. Most people haven't. It's a small clifftop village about fifteen minutes east of Tavira that appears to have been largely overlooked by the twenty-first century. A church, a handful of houses, a tiny place with a few tables outside and views across the lagoon to the sea. They've been serving the freshest oysters and clams you'll find in the region for as long as anyone can remember. You need to arrive early or you won't get a table.

The afternoon stretched out in the way that good afternoons do. By the time we left Cabanas she had four places to go, none of which you'd stumble across without knowing where to look, and a much clearer sense of what living in the east Algarve can actually feel like once you stop following the obvious route.

That's what I find most enjoyable about what I do. Not the obvious. The layer just underneath it.