Enoteca Cartuxa — Restaurant in Évora

I am not sure if I ordered a cheese board or a set of card board. Cheese in Portugal is a beautiful thing, yet Enoteca Cartuxa managed to put on the table the worst set of cheeses I have tasted to date. Considering the board had 5 options, this is a pretty great achievement. The flavour was truly despicable which might be related to the fact that when you order the board. it is taken straight out of their drinks’ fridge, the full pre-cut board’s plastic is unwrapped in front of you and the set on the table. Rest assured the fresh taste of plastic will still palpable in every bite of the cheese, which is probably a good thing considering the cheeses’ natural flavours. A cheese board can be as simple as you wish, but here, forget about walnuts/nuts/bread or jams (unless you are the table next to us, they got nuts, but we will get into that later). When your waiter says “perfect” as he gives the freshly unwrapped cheeses (that still have tempting plastic marks on them) and you ask him if you could have some bread to go with it, be ready for a shower of “not true” (to say it kindly) excuses on why they cant serve you nuts or anything else…. As you bite into each new cheese, getting surprised by how they could possibly get worse, and think to yourself “there is no way I am eating these cheeses”. You may notice how the table next to you makes the same mistake and orders the cheeseboard… however, to your surprise, everything that prevented you from having nuts (or anything to attempt to disguise the taste of the cheese) will evaporate and the table next to you will greated with a much different looking board. True it wont improve things, but you start to wonder, what did we do wrong? At this point, it all comes together, you realise this situation isn't isolated, and in reality you have been treated poorly throughout your experience; they have spoken to you rudely, ignored you when asked for service etc… as the service quality felt incredibly selective, I dont want to bore you with the details behind how a seemingly trendy/elegant space felt discriminatory because you may suit their preferred “clientele” but, if you respect your taste buds… stay away from that cheese. I havent tried anything else (other than very mediocre wine) but if you do… best of luck! I hope they dont take it off the packaging...

When we arrived at Evora, we were suggested to go to Cartuxa by our hotel manager. We followed his good advice and found out that this restaurant is overrated at best. Food in itself is okay if you want extra extra salty food. We ordered 4 different dishes, the mushroom and zucchini gratin platter, octopus salad, beef tongue and pork cheeks, 3 out of 4 were so salty you needed water to wash the salt away, which we got only after asking it 3 times. Next thing is the service, which is mediocre at best. Apart from the waiter we had at the beginning but we only unfortunately had for 5 minutes. When the other waiter arrived, we ordered and never saw him again apart when it was time to pay. Among the things we ordered, there was bread and cheese as entrees which we never go it. Water had to be asked 3 times before getting it, which ended up getting flat water but charged the sparkling one. And to top it all off, when we arrived at 7pm we were alone in the restaurant and asked to be seated elsewhere as the air conditioner was blasting into my husband's back. The woman behind the counter was so outraged, she gave us dirty looks as if we disrupted the whole restaurant. Evora is a charming small village with plenty of amazing restaurants, I would suggest to try elsewhere where you are not judged because you want to change seats and that the service is...

Wow, what a joy to stumble on. Cartuxa is not to be missed when visiting Evora, in our opinion it was the best meal and ambience we had all week- it was so good we ate their twice within 48 hours just so we could try more of the menu. The space itself is small, but you don’t feel it due to the beautifully designed interior, natural light and friendly staff. We were overjoyed to see that for as many foreigners were there, there were also locals.

Our Highlights:

(1) impeccable service- ask for Bruno, he is an absolute delight with a great palate that will assist you with food and wine pairings! (2) incredible wine selection straight from the winery, make sure to try the more gastronomic wines such as the Tapado do Chave, which is excellent with dessert! The winery itself does not ship and it’s almost impossible to find outside of Portugal, so make sure you take a few bottles to go. (3) try the octopus and the cod, both were exceptional, and do not skip dessert! Make sure to ask for the local favorites and specialities, they are on the menu for a...