À Mesa Tavira — Restaurant in Tavira

A Mesa is an ambitious place that is trying hard but failing at the moment, but I’m sure it will eventually get there, with a couple adjustments. Service and setting are great - a good start! Wine list also has a wide range of interesting Portuguese wines - incl. both established names such as Luis Pato and Soalheiro as well as smaller ones. Now, to the food… General theme is that the chef knows his techniques but is too keen showing them, and forgets about the main idea: products and flavours. Amuses were uneventful but okay. First course was oyster (from nearby Ria Formosa) - but for some reason paired with “structures of raspberry” which served no purpose and killed the flavour of the oyster. Secondly, there was a nice, modern take on red mullet with rice. Well balanced flavours, good portion and showcasing a good modern version of an Iberian classic. Main was duck with carrot and orange. Cuisson was good - but carrot didn’t serve a purpose (except for cutting it in different shapes, without flavouring). Looked fun, didn’t taste fun. Dessert was the culmination of form over substance: poached pear (which was a trompe l’oeuil) with ice cream. Again looked nice but no flavour whatsoever. A simple pasteis de nata would have been 10x better.

So as I come to the end of my review, I’d say there’s a lot of nicer places to go in Tavira, where you don’t spend +€200 for two at a place trying hard to be a Michelin restaurant but in the end being more like a “first year of cooking school” test kitchen. There were some smaller mistakes on service - and I won’t be too critical of those, although 2 I found harder to digest: serving first course without having asked drinks (despite us having asked for the sommelier to 2 different members of staff) and to some customers they offered a la carte, to us only tasting menu. À Mesa, I really hope you get there - it could potentially be a good...

A lunch time treat with my friend Exquisite and will be returning to try out more of this wonderful menu From the moment I was welcomed inside to the lovely ambience of the restaurant I knew this would be an excellent meal experience The Couvert was delightful with Patés shaped into Carrot cherry and pedra All flavourful with the warm bread and olive oil Starter Ostras e Framboesa The local. Osyers were delicate with the raspberry granita... Amazing sweet and sharp My main was the Black Pork with Seafood shrimp xerem and Bak Choy My friend had the croaker fish with Coriander rice Both were amazing flavourful and well balanced (You knew I was coming with the Asian style tweaks) Dessert Banana and Sesame This needs more descriptive meaning... Caramelised banana pieces served with banana sorbet and crackers with Black sesame shaped pedras stones Fantastic use of the black sesame outside of Chinese cookery! Lavender and Peach textures and also amazing Lavender and creamy bomb covered with white chocolate and a biscuit base with peach compote and leaf tuiles and vegan chantilly

Fantastic Amazing Stunning Highly Recommend a visit

We thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the service, meeting José Días and the team and the...

6/26/19 Á Mesa

Tavira - Ok, initially, I thought that this was going to be different….. I was right! Deliciously different! We tried the following: Vegetables and Pennyroyal (soup) - this creamy soup was tasty, Dean loved it and I’m not crazy about vegetable soups. Egg, Truffled Mushrooms puree, croutons Migas - This was smoothly scrumptious, you can taste the mushroom flavor. Croaker, lemon and coriander risotto - also delicious to the point that Dean ate it and he doesn’t like risotto and the fish held enough flavor to hold its own against the next dish. Pork cheeks and potato puree - this was tastily tender and the gravy with the pork combined with the potatoes were heaven. For dessert I had Passionfruit cake caramel ice cream - this was different, the cake wasn’t my taste, the ice cream and crunchies were very good and a nice end to an exquisite meal. We were provided a wine to go with the dessert, a late harvest wine (I think he said it was like licorice) but it wasn’t like the licorice that I know. This wine was not overly sweet and actually tasted good! They were nice for allowing this to be...