Aurora by Vitor Veloso — Restaurant in Loulé

Edit: reply to the owner's comment: 🥱 🥱 🥱 🥱 🥱 🥱 I can see more than 5 comments here on Google saying the same as my review, bad food, overpriced, BAD ATTITUDE. Sir, you are not saying the truth, we have you and your staff's aggressiveness RECORDED ON video and you're lucky we are not posting that. we did not bother other clients, it's normal to check an OPEN kitchen, why have an open kitchen if we're not allowed to see? you seem to be more upset in life. tell your waiter to brush his teeth before working.. You have issues. address that, your defensiveness will not help your restaurant. First step is acceptance that you're not perfect.. you seem to be scared of honest opinions, based on your responses here. YOU WANTED US TO LEAVE BECAUSE YOU DONT WANT YOUR OTHER CLIENTS TO HEAR THE TRUTH?

You don't tell us what to do, we will still be around Loule and enjoy our lives, but we will definitely no recommend you to anyone we meet around Algarve... ZERO STAR. We were invited by our friend to have dinner at Aurora. He thought the menu looked good and the restaurant came recommended (med festival) so we went. We are Filipina, German, and Portuguese, one of us used to be a chef, and I also love to cook and appreciate good food.

Mediocre food. Arrogant and RACIST staff. Beautiful plating, but far from good. The quality of the food does not match the price they are asking for. We expected a much better experience for what we paid. The dishes looked nice, but flavor and execution were lacking. They didn’t serve bread and butter for all 3, even though it was part of the menu. Maybe they assumed because one is a woman/girl, that we would eat less and share The waiter got annoyed when we asked for details about the food. The waiter smelled strongly of tobacco. The meat, which we asked to be medium rare, was overcooked and tough, almost impossible to chew. They offered to replace it with fish, and we accepted. 1 plate was late and asked us to share the first 2 plates while waiting for the other 🥲 When the bill came, they charged us for more than three meals and an extra glass of wine we never ordered. We approached them to clarify. Owner told us we could leave without paying. We still wanted to pay for what we actually consumed, even if the experience was bad, but being charged extra on top of that felt unfair. As we were leaving and I was taking some photos and videos (I always take photos wherever I eat!) they suddenly became aggressive. One of the staff called us “not locals,” “German,” and even “pvta.” They accused us of bullying and insulting them, but we were simply offering constructive criticism. One of them slso threatened us and said " I know you, I will find you in the streets" There was no apology since the beginning, only ego, toxic masculine energy, and defensiveness....

We’ve tried many fine dining restaurants, and this is the only place where we’ve been treated with such a lack of respect. The service was deeply unprofessional and the atmosphere felt toxic. There’s nothing wrong with giving honest feedback about the food or asking for clarification on the bill. The whole experience was upsetting and, frankly, traumatic. The MED Festival is a wonderful event, it’s a shame this restaurant was part of it.

I have photos and a video that I’m keeping to send directly to the restaurant. I hope they take time to reflect on their attitude and the way they treat guests.

If you're a local, youre good, but if you're a foreigner, be...

We got to this restaurant by chance, we were looking for the Loule castle and the restaurant is just in front of the castle entrance. They just opened 4 months ago, so they are not on any "best of" list. My wife and myself had "pratos do dia" or specials of the day. My wife had a duck breast with chestnut that was very tender and tasteful and I had a pork loin with almond crust that was very good. The desert was "filhos" a local specialty served with drunk pear. Very good. We also had a good selection of cheese. The prices are a little higher than the typical Portuguese restaurant, but a lot cheaper than the chefs restaurants of the same level. The service was...

My wife and I had dinner here to celebrate our anniversary and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

I had the clam and partridge starter, and we both had the black pork for main course with sides of roasted sweet potato and vegetables, finishing with the apple pie. This was accompanied by some very nice red wine (one of which recommended by the sommelier/lead waiter) and a Moscatel to go with the apple pie.

The service was relaxed but efficient (although some of them were quite shy), and the food excellent for the money. We both agreed that it was some of the best food that we have eaten during our two week holiday in the Algarve and would...