Restaurante Campo Alegre /Compadre — Restaurant in Porto

Avoid! After visiting the north of Portugal since 2005, we can honestly and motivated write our first one-star review ever for a restaurant in this region (even if the owner who seems to like to comment to reviews will of course underline that I have no knowledge). Believe me, try to look at google, try to really take some minutes to read some reviews in details and to see some well defined pictures. This is not a good option compared to all the other fantastic restaurants in the city.

Food (2,5-3 stars): Arroz de pescada was quite alright. The rice was tasty, but nearly no pescada inside. Shrimps (two) were good and on point. Polvo a lagareiro was a lot worse compared to most other experiences (maybe 50 different version that I have tried?!) with my most favorite dish. The polvo arm was cut in half. As a consequence, it was much dryer than in every other restaurant I know. Optically it looked like it was more than it was due to cutting everything in half (this is no special technique, it is simply not the best way of doing it). So also portion size too small. Potatoes were quite hard and no comparison to good batata murros that are normally served to a Polvo a Lagareiro. Paprika strips were burned. But we were hungry and it was eatable. Sericaia: I love the region of Alentejo. So I do not know how many fatias I have already eaten around Evora or smaller cities like Grandola, the coast or the countryside. This was one of the worse. It was very compact from the texture and really heavy. A good sericaia can be as light as air in the mouth. My friends from the Alenetjo underline it completely. Bolo de mousse de chocolat: Interesting thing about it, was that it was not mentioned on the English card that we got. I only knew about it due to a friend around Campanha. This cake was really good.

Service (0 stars): Although friendly at the beginning, the bill was completely wrong and included 4 items that we didn't consume. Three really weak couvert items + a bottle of water that we never received. Spending maybe evening number xxx in a Portuguese restaurant, I NEVER EXPERIENCED so many problems with the bill. It was a difference of approx 20% of the right bill. It can happen sometimes that you take only the bread and you still see the olives on the bill. This can happen and is in most cases just a mistake. But I explicitly do believe that there is some trick going on here. We even did not receive a "desculpe" for the wrong bill that would make me at least a bit believe that it was only a mistake. Even not a "played" desculpe. Nothing. Interesting stuff: I ordered half a liter of water, did not receive and the bill included the more expensive 1 liter bottle :-D. It is just water, but come on, do not play tricks on not stupid guests. Couvert in this restaurant also means that they serve some drops of olive oil on a plate and will try to let you pay for it even if you do not consume it. Maybe the first restaurant ever in Portugal where nobody asks you whether everything is ok when collecting the plates. Especially this shows me also that the motivation in serving good food with good service is quite low in this house. So it does not make sense to invest any more time from my side to list how things normally work in a good portuguese restaurant compared to here. The owner quite surely thinks that...

Alright, this place looked really great online, so we gave it a shot. Now, having read some other reviews, I realize that there needs to be a more balanced review of this restaurant. Also, read the owner's comments on here to get an idea of their ego and mission - it's got nothing to do with serving good food or being a gracious host. So, here we go!

The food is ok, but it is definitely not spectacular. I think the major hangup here is that the food is presented very nicely and a lot of people traveled a long way to get here, so they're just unwilling to give a fair review of the food. Who knows, but the reviews are clearly out of line with the quality. We ordered the following dishes: piri-piri shrimp, mushrooms, bacalao in tomato sauce, and grilled octopus. The shrimp looked excellent, but were bland and basically consisted of very nice shrimp in some reddish colored olive oil with minimal salt. The mushrooms were portobello and champignon: portobello's were cooked well, but extremely salty, whereas the champignon's were undercooked and entirely lacked salt. Note that the primary seasoning here is salt, so don't misread this thinking I left something out. The bacalao was lightly fried on a bed of fried potatoes (no salt, fried in olive oil). It wasn't great, but maybe I just don't like this version of bacalao. That said, this was supposed to be braised in the house speciality tomato sauce and you'll notice that there was no sauce at all, rather just a fried, tough, fishy, leathery piece of bacalao. Finally, the octopus was grilled in some seasoning that made it kind of bitter. It was lightly salted and reasonably tender, but also had some slightly slimy consistency. The accompanying vegetables were all fine, but again just pan fried potatoes, way overcooked/bitter/fishy/inedible broccoli, and boiled cabbage (all unsalted).

All said, including a bottle of decent wine and tip, we spent €70. Not too bad a price if the food were decent. However, this just wasn't up to par. I think it's difficult to evaluate Portuguese food in general, but i felt this place needed a counterbalance to what i perceive as dishonest/overzealous reviews. I rely heavily on google reviews and am often left dumbfounded by restaurants that get much higher reviews than they deserve, so I only leave honest reviews and i hope this one helps someone out. Good luck with your...

Magnificent meal and experience! After 15+ hours of flying we had finally arrived in Porto in the need of a warm cozy place to have meal made by a chef who LOVED to cook. It was a Friday night and we did not have a reservation. The owner must have read into the looks on our face and offered us a small table in the corner of the small restaurant. He took care of us himself all the while turning out dish after dish of beautiful food each with lovely aromas. AMAZING! My husband ordered the Shrimp Curry the shrimp were huge and plump. My husband said the curry sauce was different than any other but definitely the best he had ever had. I had the Black Pork with the lentil and sausage side with greens it was beyond belief. We plan on returning tonight for Sunday dinner. This restaurant is off the beaten path but when in Porto...