Chef João Oliveira presents a new comfort food menu inspired by the Algarve coast at Praia da Rocha
Bela Vista Hotel & Spa in Portimão has opened BELA, a new restaurant bringing relaxed dining and comforting flavours, open to both hotel guests and outside visitors.
Under chef João Oliveira’s creativity, the new venue offers a more informal alternative to VISTA, the hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant.
“It’s a beach restaurant, with a menu offering the freedom to choose from a variety of dishes in a relaxed setting, with good wines and good food, always in the sunshine,” Oliveira said.
Whilst both restaurants are guided by the respect for high-quality local ingredients, BELA has been designed as a distinctly different experience.
“BELA isn’t fine dining; they’re different approaches and different ways of looking at cuisine,” he explained.
The menu centres on familiar, comforting food presented with a creative touch. Dishes include spiced veal croquette (€7), cockle “rissol” (€7), seasonal tomato salad with fresh herbs (€22), as well as seafood rice, sole meunière, grilled tiger prawn (€38), ray wing with Alvor clams (€35)or grilled Black Angus entrecôte (€39).
The opening also coincides with a refurbishment of the hotel’s pool and terrace areas, completed as part of its long-standing collaboration with interior designer Graça Viterbo.
Inspired by the Algarve of the 1950s, the updated outdoor spaces combine white-painted wrought iron, patterned tiles and a brighter colour palette, with work by local artisans helping to preserve the character of the historic palacete and one of the Algarve’s oldest hotels.
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