Cafezique — Restaurant in Loulé

Simply phenomenal. The love that has been poured into this place is obvious the moment you step inside. The food is super inventive and - crucially - delicious. They value each ingredient's provenance, with an emphasis on local and Portuguese. You can accept any dish or wine recommendations with confidence. The tasting menu looks incredible but we opted for a la carte and shared most of the dishes. Special shout out for the prawn tartare, black pork with cockles and apple tart with blue cheese.

The staff strike just the right balance of attentive and knowledgeable but unpretentious and friendly. A lovely touch to pass the kitchen staff on your way upstairs. We had a fantastic table in our own enclosed area where the kids could move freely and we adults could relax, and we never felt anything less than completely welcome.

The attention to detail continues into the restaurant space which has been designed beautifully: modern but with warmth and personality. The branding team also deserve plaudits for their vision which pulls together everything from the exterior sign to the napkin embroidery and toilet doors! Wholeheartedly recommended as a departure from typical traditional fare, tourist traps and ex pat offerings. Selfishly, I would love to steal it for London but then it wouldn't be the unique and special place that its location and founders...

This was my second visit (last time was 5 months ago). Both times the service was impeccable, the servers were extremely knowledgeable about the provenance of the food and the Portuguese heritage behind them. This is casual fine dining - not teeny tiny portions but small enough that the 6 dishes we ordered between 2 people was perfect.

My only criticism is that from the menu it was not always clear what you were going to get and we were not expecting the prawns to be raw. Regretfully I didn’t take photos of all the menu but there is a selection below of some of the dishes.

We decided not to have the tasting menu but the helpful and friendly sommelier was still able to do matched wines due to coravin.

The total was €160 for 6 dishes with matched wines. Pricier than a standard Portuguese restaurant but compared to nearby Michelin starred restaurants this is extremely good value and the standard is very similar.

We happily recommend it and...

If you are staying in or near to Loulé then dinner at Café Zique is a must. Beautiful setting including a terrace next to the castle walls which is stunning at golden hour. Inside is cosy too. Food it creative and uses local ingredients in a contemporary way, the menu changes often and is always surprising and delightful. The wine list is also great and alot of work goes into finding interesting Portuguese wines to go with the dishes. Staff very knowledgeable and kind.

We have also been to a few of the pop up events which are always very refreshing and interesting - the last one was focused on the Portuguese traditional dish of Rabanada, their version of french toast, prepared by some of the Algarves best chefs! We learnt alot about it's cultural significance and ate very well indeed.

Highly recommend and so great to have restaurants like this in the Algarve that are both extremely well executed but also super cosy, casual and...