Zavial — Restaurant in Vila do Bispo

Want to see your dog reduced to eating leaves like some sort of animal? This is the place for you. It’s fair to say the guys at Zuvial aren’t exactly “dog people”. But I wonder if you could even describe them as “people people”? Not if your party of four asks for more than two wine glasses, at least. But this is just a taste of the inhuman treatment you can expect; with the stunning, wild vistas behind you, you can’t help but feel you’d be happier in the car park cooking up your beans on a camp stove. I should interrupt myself to point out the positives: the wine (white) tasted nice, and the fisherman’s smorgasbord was at least the sum of its parts. The good times end there though, I’m afraid to say. Working our way through our limp noodles was made twice as difficult with the cries of our abandoned dog echoing around the restaurant, and the clams were accompanied with a side of unwarranted judgement, as the waiter blamed us for prematurely eating the bread that was supposed to soak up the clam juice - despite this alleged transgression taking place before said clams were ordered.

Without wanting to lose any more of my time to this establishment, suffice to say if you’re hungry in this neck of the woods, walk ten minutes to O Sebastiao and find out how fish is supposed to taste.

There’s always a good donut in a bakers dozen, so let’s end with a well deserved hand for the slightly-more-friendly waiter who showed impressive strength and balance in clearing our table in a single...

Visited this area yesterday and decided to have some lunch. I would have given 5 stars however the staff unfortunately had quite a poor attitude. We arrived followed the instruction to wait to be seated, note make sure you do or you’ll be told off, once seated we waited and waited, 4 waiters kept walking past us served everyone around us and eventually came and took our order. Eventually the food arrived it’s fabulous and plentiful. There were quite a few surfers around which was good to watch. Anyway a table next to us ordered their food which was delivered fairly quickly, unlike ours, it appeared one dish was incorrect. On raising it with the waitress she took the dish away, shaking her head, passed to another waiter who rolled his eyes and went back to the table with the dish to ask what was wrong. On explaining this the waiter took it away quite clearly not happy, no apology for the incorrect item. Going back to the seating point, a couple walked in went to sit at an empty table to be chased by the waitress and told to go and wait by the door. The sign could be missed if you aren’t looking properly so be warned don’t sit down until you are taken to a table. It’s a shame as the food was fantastic, a little bit of customer service training certainly wouldn’t go amiss, service with a smile always appeases a difficult situation. Is it worth a visit? Yes it is just...

Over hyped. The restaurant is quite large with both an inside and terrace area; we elected to sit on the terrace and were shown to a table for two with excellent views over the bay and cliffs. The pleasant waitress took our drinks order of a bottle of wine and after delivering it took our meal order; a bowl of olives for starter, a monkfish and prawn kebab for me and lamb chops for my partner. We asked what the meals came with; just chips, so ordered a mixed salad to share. The kebab consisted of three tomatoes, three chunks of monkfish, three prawns and half of an onion, served with a large portion of frozen (cheap) chips The fish and tomatoes were fine but the prawns were still whole and had not been deveined; at the price I should have thought that they would have been prepared. My partners four lamb chops proved to be overcooked, tough and inedible; the waitress agreed to take them back to the kitchen who undercooked some more chops which were still tough. Full marks to the waitress and restaurant for trying to please. The mixed salad was quite good. For a bottle of house wine, olives and two meals, paying €80 for what was an undistinguished beach bar meal was way over the top; as residents we regularly eat out so have an appreciation of what to pay in these places. Be also aware that they do not accept cards so it is cash only (they have an ATM...