Estaminé, the island seafood restaurant you can only reach by boat

There’s one building on Ilha Deserta, an island with no roads and no residents, and it’s a restaurant. Here’s my review of Estaminé: what to order, what lunch costs now, how to get a table and how to time the boats from Faro so you aren’t left on the sand.

Some restaurants are worth crossing town for. This one is worth crossing a lagoon for.

I came over during an October week in the Algarve, on a small catamaran from Faro with a nature guide, and the trip across the Ria Formosa was a treat in its own right. The real reason to make the crossing, though, was lunch.

Estaminé is the only restaurant on Ilha Deserta, the empty barrier island at the western end of the lagoon. It sits alone among the dunes, with a boardwalk running out across the sand, and it has been feeding day trippers off the boats since it started life as a beach hut in 1987.

It serves some of the best seafood you’ll find in Portugal, no kidding. If you love seafood, it belongs at the very top of your Algarve list.

Quick verdict

Estaminé is a relaxed, sunlit lunch spot on a deserted island, serving Ria Formosa oysters and clams, grilled fish and rich seafood rice a few steps from the dunes, in a building that makes its own power and drinking water. It suits seafood lovers, anyone spending a beach day on the island and anyone who wants a long lunch with a boat ride attached. It isn’t a cheap lunch, it’s only open in the daytime and it works around the boat timetable, so it’s not for a quick bite or a late dinner.

My rating: 5/5

The setting would be reason enough to go, but it’s the cooking that makes the boat ride worth it.

The essentials at a glance

• What it is: the only restaurant on Ilha Deserta (also called Ilha da Barreta), an uninhabited island in the Ria Formosa Natural Park, run by Animaris, the company behind the island’s boats.
• Where: Ilha Deserta, Parque Natural da Ria Formosa, 8005-554 Faro. There’s no road: you arrive by boat from Faro.
• Opening hours: every day for lunch, all year round, from noon to about 5pm, in time for the afternoon boats back.
• Bookings: online through the Ilha Deserta website or by phone on +351 917 811 856. Book ahead in summer and at weekends.
• Price: about €45 to €65 a head for a shared starter, a seafood main or a share of a rice and a glass of wine. A table cover charge is €3.85 a person.
• Getting there: by boat from Faro, either the ferry (around 45 minutes, €5 each way) or the speedboat (around 15 minutes, €10 each way).
• Must-orders: Ria Formosa oysters, clams Bulhão Pato, the octopus salad and a seafood rice to share.

What’s so special about Estaminé?

There’s something about eating on an island with nothing else on it. Ilha Deserta has no houses, no cars and no shops, just dunes, a long Atlantic beach and the lagoon on the other side. Estaminé is the one building, a restaurant with the whole place to itself.

The first restaurant here opened in 1987 as a simple hut a little north of where the restaurant stands today. A new building went up in 2007, designed from the start to look after itself on an island with no mains supply. That building burned down overnight on 2 March 2021, in a fire that could be seen from Faro and Olhão. Nobody was hurt, and within about five months the restaurant had been rebuilt, reopening in August 2021 with a more ecological structure than before. I’ve been back since the rebuild, and it’s just as wonderful.

So the dining room I sat in has gone, and the one you’ll eat in is newer. What hasn’t changed is the idea: fresh fish and seafood from the lagoon and the coast, cooked simply, with the dunes outside and the Atlantic just beyond them.

When I visited, the owner was Isabel Vicente, who had been feeding the island’s visitors since the days of the first hut, and she is something of a genius when it comes to seafood. Oysters, octopus, clams, prawns: every dish that came out of her kitchen showed off her deft touch.

My lunch on the island

My table was a tour of the lagoon’s best: oysters, an octopus salad, a pan of clams and a plate of crispy prawns, with grilled fish and a chilled bottle of Algarve white from Quinta dos Vales. The Ria Formosa is one of Portugal’s great shellfish nurseries, so the oysters hadn’t travelled far, and they came simply, with a wedge of lemon.

The octopus salad is the Algarve’s classic summer starter: octopus with tomato, onion and fresh herbs, dressed with vinegar and olive oil. You’ll see it all over the coast, and it’s a good test of a kitchen.

Then the clams, which I’d tell anyone to order here. Cooked Bulhão Pato style, with garlic, olive oil, coriander and a squeeze of lemon, they’re the kind of dish that’s only as good as the clams themselves, and these come from the lagoon you’ve just crossed.

The prawns came fried whole and crisp, heads and all, with a creamy dip on the side, and the fish came off the grill split open on a wooden board, with nothing more than lemon and a little salad. Simple cooking, in other words, that leaves the seafood to do the talking.

What to order at Estaminé

Dishes come in sharing portions, which suits a long island lunch: order a few starters for the table, then a fish or a rice to share.

• Ria Formosa oysters: €3.30 each, or as part of a shellfish platter (six for €19, a dozen for €38).
• Clams Bulhão Pato: Ria Formosa clams in garlic, olive oil and coriander (€29).
• Octopus salad: €12, a fresh, sharp starter.
• Beach prawns: the house’s long-standing signature, peeled prawns in a lightly spicy secret sauce (€21).
• Garlic prawns: €21.
• Petiscos tasting menu: a spread of small plates for two (€27.50), a good way to try a little of everything.
• Grilled, baked or pot-cooked fish: the catch of the day for two (€68), or priced by the kilo for the premium fish.
• Rice and xarém: clam rice (€48 for two), lobster rice (€89 for two) or a traditional shellfish xarém, the Algarve’s soft cornmeal dish (€26).
• To finish: desserts from €6 to €9.50, including a Santa Clara slice and a dark chocolate mousse.

Prices are from the restaurant’s own online menu, checked in October 2026, and dishes depend on what comes in on the boat, so check the menu at the table.

How to get a table

The restaurant takes bookings online through the Ilha Deserta website (the “Book table” option) or by phone on +351 917 811 856. It’s open all year and quieter outside the summer, but in July and August and at weekends it pays to book, and to book the boat at the same time so the two line up.

It’s open for lunch only, from noon until mid-afternoon, closing in time for the last boats back to Faro. There’s no dinner service.

Getting there: the boat from Faro

Every boat to Ilha Deserta is run by Animaris and leaves from the pier at Faro’s Porta Nova, beside the old town and the marina. There are three ways over:

• The ferry: about 45 minutes through the lagoon, €5 each way.
• The speedboat shuttle: about 15 minutes, €10 each way.
• A nature tour: the slower, guided way over, which is how I went. A guide points out the birds and marine life of the Ria Formosa on the way and drops you on the island, so you can combine the lagoon, the beach and lunch in one day.

My guide to Ilha Deserta has the full boat timetable, the boardwalk and the beach, and my guide to the Ria Formosa Natural Park covers the wider lagoon, its islands and its birdlife.

Solar power and seawater: the green claims checked

The restaurant calls itself sustainable, and on an island with no mains electricity or water, it has had to be. Here’s what it says and what stands up:

• Power: the restaurant says a photovoltaic plant covers all its energy needs, and the solar panels are hard to miss beside the building. The kitchen stove runs on that solar power too.
• Water: the drinking water is made on the island, by desalinating seawater and purifying it through reverse osmosis.
• The rebuild: after the 2021 fire, Animaris rebuilt the restaurant with a more ecological structure than the original building.
• Supplies: with no road, everything, from the fish to the guests, arrives by boat.

Independent reporting in the Algarve press backs up the solar power and the home-made drinking water. There are no published figures on waste or on how the fish is sourced beyond “fresh”, so take the green credentials as genuine on energy and water rather than a full certification.

Cost and tipping

This isn’t a budget lunch, and it doesn’t pretend to be. The cover (bread, herb butter, olives and carrots) is €3.85 a person, a few oysters, a share of the clams and the octopus and a glass of wine come to about €45 to €65 a head, and a lobster rice or a premium fish pushes it higher. Add the boat, at €10 to €20 return, and lunch here is a proper day out rather than a quick bite.

Service charges aren’t normally added in Portugal, so a tip of about 10% is welcome if lunch went well; there’s more on local habits in my guide to tipping in Portugal.

The catches

• The boats set the pace: lunch has to fit around the boat timetable, especially the last departures back to Faro.
• Summer can be slow: in July and August the restaurant and the boats are at their busiest, and recent diners have reported long waits for a table and for food at peak times. Book, arrive early and don’t plan a tight connection.
• It adds up: oysters and clams are priced individually and some fish by the kilo, so ask before you order if you’re watching the bill.
• Daytime only: there’s no evening service, so you can’t stay on for sunset dinner on the island.

Address and getting there

Estaminé, Ilha Deserta, Parque Natural da Ria Formosa, 8005-554 Faro. Phone +351 917 811 856.

Boats leave from the Porta Nova pier in Faro, a short walk from the old town’s Arco da Porta Nova. Faro airport is about 15 minutes away by car or taxi, so the island makes an easy first or last lunch of an Algarve trip. If you’re staying around Quinta do Lago, as I did at Four Seasons Fairways, Faro’s pier is about 20 minutes’ drive.

My verdict

Estaminé is one of my top food tips for the Algarve. If you take just one of my restaurant recommendations in the region, make it this one: get yourself on a boat, order the oysters, the octopus and the clams, and give yourself time to walk it off on the beach afterwards.

My rating: 5/5

Map

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