Vila Joya

This restaurant boasts the highest Michelin rating in Portugal: two stars. It deserves them for the setting, an impressive building and location overlooking the sea that also has 17 luxurious rooms; for the service staff, young and motivated; and for the cuisine, without a doubt great all around. The author of this cuisine is the illustrious Dieter Koschina, an Austrian living in this oasis of the good life for the last thirteen years. The word that characterizes him above all others is solid; impressively solid. He knows exactly what he wants and succeeds in infusing his dishes with it. A very well defined cuisine, conceptually and technically cultured, erudite, knowledgeable… also characterized by its extreme refinement and immense personality. His exquisite gift of taste is evident in all seasonings, in the minutest details. A touch of fresh-ground pepper with a fresh picked and chopped chive convert a goat cheese pasta into a sublime starter. His tapenade is, of all of those we have tasted, the best seasoned. What sauces! This is a cuisine with identity: within a central European style, it is open to all cultures and has charisma.

Dieter receives the diner with the courtesy a gourmet deserves: a tray containing smoked salmon with roe, dill and yogurt; raw tuna with a sweet and sour soy dressing; a crusted mozzarella with eggplant pate; a sardine, tomato, olive and pesto brochette; and a piece of smoked eel wrapped in fried bacon. Such effort is combined with an impressive capacity for synthesis: the raw scallop “ravioli”, marinated and filled with caviar over a base of veal head; anthological. The ravioli, in this case of pasta, hiding lobster in their insides and served with a large, very fresh, perfectly done scarlet prawn, sliced asparagus, tomato and velvety pepper sauce, deserve the most lofty praises. As does the silky balsamic truffle sauce, a perilous leap from which he emerges harmoniously composed, accompanying turbot over melt-in-your-mouth leeks. The artisanal Nantes roast duck has the value of the specimen and know-how, with which he shows yet again that behind every recipe is a chef at the height of his game. The beef entrecote with red wine sauce, the Madeira-style veal, and the saddle of venison with port wine are true tributes to the ingredients and to history.

In just a few words, very impressive, intelligent, noble, effective cuisine that produces admiration and gives great satisfaction.