Adega do Cozinheiro — Restaurant in Sintra

Great restaurant, delicious food and most kind & lovely people!!❤️ This is a true story happened 3 years ago, on June 10, 2019. I am a Chinese🇨🇳live in San Francisco🇺🇸driving a rental car to visit Peña Palace on that day. It was a holiday or some event going on, the town was closed on some main streets, Google Map detoured me driving around for 1 hour, still cannot find the Palace of Peña, totally got lost. I decided to have lunch first and ask local people for advice. Google suggested this restaurant, Adega Do Cozinheiro with great review and food😊😊

I ordered a classic local food, delicious fish & potato, as shown in the picture, it was very very tasty ！!👍 👍 I explained my situation, had got lost and looking for help. The gentleman (I even don’t know his name, as his back shown in the picture) said he would drive to guide me through the detour routes. This was far beyond my expectation, because it was lunch peak hour, and he would get off work to help me.

From the attached pictures, you will not only see my great lunch food, you will also see the kind gentleman who served my delicious lunch and then get off work to help me to get to the Palace of Peña.

Yes, he drove 40 minutes to take me all the way to the entrance of Peña palace !! 🏰 🏰 He is so kind and so considerate that he took me to the best parking spot, because the other side was crowded and hard to find parking. (As shown in the picture, Firstly he drove a motorcycle, but went down; then he switched to a white car, I just drove my car to follow his car all the way)

Words could not express my gratitude and appreciation ！！❤️❤️❤️

I’ve been telling this story to many people around me. This experience also inspires me to pass on the love and kindness. Really...

Down-home style, cooking with only the freshest ingredients and absolutely no pretense. Initially I wanted to give this place 4 stars for the food. Why? Because while the fish-platter was seasoned and cooked to perfection, the meat-platter was indeed cooked to perfection, but the only seasoning on the different meats was 'salt' and it appeared all of the meats were boiled. Then you ask yourself, why you came here in the first place. And the answer is to get a true feel for the how the locals eat. Then you are inspired by how fresh the ingredients are and how pure the tastes are, like they were meant to be without the tainting of seasonings that take away their true flavor.

Also, initially, we arrived close to closing time and the owners seemingly did not want to accommodate us but this lovely, caring waitress, who took a scolding from the owners, cleared a table for us and sat us down within 10 minutes. Needless to say, we closed down the place (at 4pm!!!).

The location of this place is in a highly residential area so be prepared to park is close/tight-quarters. So while parking is an issue for some, driving here is likely necessary since public-transportation to this place will...

The food was absolutely great. We were looking for something local given the fact that in Sintra Centre, everything seems kinda touristy and not what we were looking for. But this place is the real deal. Sangria is refreshing, food is local and very tasty, the place is rustic abd we had a great time. The cheese that they serve you with is absolutely delicious and in a way it took me back home, they are somewhat similar. When we will come back , we will visit you more. Thank you...