A Tasca — Restaurant in Vila do Bispo

Oh wow, this was a funny one. We went here for a treat meal towards the end of our holiday and planned to have a proper blow out and eat and drink to our hearts content. The reviews for A Tasca were mostly good so we had high hopes and were encouraged by the gorgeous location with stunning views over the harbour. Unfortunately we just had some bad luck in ending up with Graca/Gracina(?) as our waitress who inexplicably took an intense dislike to us from the very start. We saw her smile and be pleasant to other customers but for some unclear reason she decided she reaally did not like us. Her facial expressions ranged from disgust to contempt throughout our visit, it was genuinely baffling why she had this strong negative reaction to us.

She did assist me in choosing my lobster, perhaps I annoyed her by quietly apologising to the one I selected? Maybe it's silly but I always do feel a little bad issuing the death sentence.. Anyway that's the only thing I can think of that possibly annoyed her as otherwise we were quiet, polite customers.

We ordered some soft drinks with our meal and they were the only drinks we were allowed the whole time we were there- everytime we tried to get her attention she brushed us off or just flatly ignored us. My partners meal came first, he had the pork which was admittedly delicious but he waited for my meal so we could eat together and unfortunately this meant his food went cold. If I'd known it was going to take so long I would have told him just to eat but my lobster didn't arrive for a further fifteen minutes and it arrived already stone cold clearly having sat unattended for some time. The accompanying fries arrived even later- they were also cold and completely inedible.

I would have loved to have enjoyed a glass of wine with my meal and we both fancied some dessert after but Gracina just didn't want to serve us anything except dirty looks. We did laugh about it, it was just so bizarre.

The young waitress who greeted us initially was very pleasant as was the older waitress who took our bill, so it was just bad luck we got Gracina. She's the petite older woman with grey hair tied back, I would avoid her as a server in case she decides you're the next persona non grata. Highly weird experience and disappointing because we spent a lot of money on the food for it to be cold, no drinks to accompany it etc, but didn't spoil our mood. Just one of those things.

It was extremely busy when we visited and I would say the restaurant could have done with more staff, there only appeared to be 4 staff for all of the outside seating area but we did see other later arriving customers getting served their meals before us, other customers being able to order drinks etc. Take your chances, I can imagine having a very nice time there with a different server and the option of hot food served at the same time as your eating companion- and if actually staff permit you to enjoy a drink with your meal. It could be very nice...

My partner and I had an AWFUL experience with one of the men here. He was a server (seemingly in charge of something?). We ordered an appetizer and one dish to share from him and then ordered sparkling water. He asked if we wanted one or two and we, thinking he was asking about the water, asked how big they were. He said not too big and so we said two, again, still thinking he was talking about the water. They brought out an appetizer and our water (only brought one jug but we didn’t want to make a fuss about it) and then brought out the lamb skewers entree we were going to share. We started both dishing up off of that plate when the waitress brought out a second entree of lamb skewers. We said “oh we just ordered one to share” and then she went to go bring it back in. The man comes STORMING out at us and immediately and aggressively starts telling us we ordered two of them and he knows we did and is accusing us of lying. We realized what had happened when he started recounting the conversation to us and said “ohhhh no we were talking about the sparkling water, there must have been a miscommunication” and he again aggressively accused us of lying and trying to actually just pay for one entree. Which again, was all we had on our table, they hadn’t even left the second one because we sent it away. My partner and I are both women and 1) don’t feel like this would have happened if one of us was a man and 2) felt like it was kind of an ego thing when he realized it had been a language miscommunication. We felt extremely unsafe after that point and completely lost our appetites and didn’t eat our dinner. We quickly asked for the check and put cash down as two other waitresses stood behind us very obviously whispering about us and glaring.

It completely derailed what would’ve have been a lovely and romantic evening and it was the worst dining experience and service I have ever received. Ruined our...

0/5⭐️

Visited: October 19th 2025 (~18:30h)

Order: Vinho verde (4€), Ginger Beer (2,80€), Couvert (bread and butter) (3€), Olives (2,30€), Bowl de Marisco (60€)

Food: Starters: bread was okay, "herb" butter had some small green pieces in it that didn't affect the taste at all olives were okay Bowl de Marisco contained razor clams, mussels, clams, shrimp, tiger prawn and crayfish, some veggies (onion, peppers) taste was even worse than bad, all of the nice ingredients were completely cooked to death, everything was chewy and seeing the ingredients being treated this way made me very sad sauce was too salty and lacked flavor overall rice was way too salty

Service/Atmosphere: service was alright, not very welcoming, but not unfriendly as well even though we were one of two tables who came when it opened, we waited much longer than a lot of people who came later, maybe because the seafood was not quite overcooked enough atmosphere is nice when on the terrace, you can seed the small harbor, inside of the restaurant is completely overdecorated and not exactly elegant or classy

Verdict: Worst food experience in Portugal and one of the worst in my entire life. For the love of god fire your chefs and get someone who treats ingredients and dead animals with more respect. I really can't believe how bad it was. In the meantime: avoid the restaurant at all cost, except maybe for drinks...

Rating system: 0⭐️terrible, nobody should eat this 1⭐️ disappointing but edible 2⭐️ fine, nothing special, works if there are no other options 3⭐️quite tasty, might visit again 4⭐️ delicious, visit was worth it 5⭐️ amazing, will/would eat...