Restaurante Mercearia da Aldeia — Restaurant in Tavira

We love coming to the Aldeia. Every time we eat here we get a very warm welcome and delicious food. Tonight a group of friends and I arrived late from the airport and didn’t get to the restaurant until 9:45pm. It’s the first time some of my friends had come to the Algarve and they were so impressed by the cuisine at the Aldeia. We had the Algarvian carrots and olives to start, followed by octopus salads, bruschetta and a ham and cheese board, complete with honey and grape jam. We shared an amazing chocolate and pistachio cake for pudding. The food is always excellent here, made with high quality ingredients.

Owner Ze even gave us a carton of milk to take home when I explained we had arrived late from the airport and wanted to have milk in our morning cups of tea. What a kind gesture.

This is a firm favourite restaurant of ours and we thank Ze and his team for always giving us a beautiful meal with a...

So, it was late, we did not plan well, no reservation etc so initially we were turned away. No joke, we were desperate. Too late to hit a store so we went back and asked if we could just buy some bread and wine. We explained our situation, and they agreed to sit a party of 6. We were extremely GRATEFUL, and our servers were wonderful. Food was delicious but the wines were outstanding. The shop in the back was wall to wall wines with all different price points; something for everyone. It was fun just to walk around and pick some out. The family that owns it generosity that night is not to be lost on us. We truly were in a tough situation (plus we took Uber there so we really were...

The choice of wines was excellent, and we found one that was perfect for us at a decent price. Sadly the food was poor! There were three of us, one had the Robalo fillets, nice enough but nothing different to any other basic restaurant. My friend had black pork which was badly seasoned, very salty. I had the fried rabbit which had been butchered by someone that had little knowledge of anatomy, just chopped into pieces leaving splinters of bone in all the meat; it was then salted to a point of being inedible, very sad. We...