The Algarve’s name dates back, our guide tells us, to the time when this region of Portugal was the westernmost part of the Moorish empire. It comes from the Arabic Al-Gharb, meaning ‘place where the sun sets’. Presumably because the Arabic for ‘place where, before setting, the sun bakes the sand to a scorching heat under your feet, making you grateful for the myriad pools and shaded hammocks and the bartender’s way with an icy almond-liqueur cocktail’ proved less catchy.
Though it would have been no less accurate; we’re met with 30°C heat when we step off the plane in Faro at 9am and that’s standard for June. Despite that heat the drive through the Algarve is incredibly verdant – nothing like the dusty sparseness of some neighbouring stretches of Andalusia at this time of year – and the hour’s journey to VILA VITA Parc is flanked with hillside groves of trees, bougainvilleas sprouting out of stone walls and just a general abundance of greenery on all sides.
And nowhere more green than VILA VITA Parc itself; the resort’s 54 acres are a mass of palm trees, grass-covered slopes and vine-draped trellises, made possible by a staggering number of gardeners and grounds staff. Those trees and trellises, along with what seems to be a different pool every hundred metres, offer up a break from the heat whenever it’s needed. As does Herdade dos Grous, a similarly verdant vineyard and farm owned by VILA VITA Hotels, which supplies an impressive amount of the meat, cheese and wine served at this resort. A couple of hours’ drive away in the Beja region, visitors to VILA VITA Parc often add a stay and wine-tasting at Herdade dos Grous’s lakeside hotel as part of their trip. But time being limited on this visit, we settle for putting a dent in the Portuguese section of Cave de Vinhos‘s reserve of wine and port – a relatively puny dent, since their cellar houses over 11 000 bottles – over a dinner of equally local seafood and cured meats at Adega restaurant.
As with the the food, the resort’s design is Portuguese-accented. The rooms at the Residence are scattered with locally sourced products: the typical blue-and-white patterned pottery hanging on the walls; the Claus Porto products in the bathroom, and the gift of fig and carob cakes and bottle of Espumante waiting in a wine cooler on my terrace table when I arrive. Ditto the Portuguese cotton dressing gown, which I part with quite reluctantly at the end of the holiday. The slippers – like walking on little, gold-embroidered clouds – I don’t have to part with, because when my masseuse walks into the changing rooms and finds me wistfully photographing my feet, she gifts them to me. I suspect mostly out of pity.
Wistful photography doesn’t have that effect throughout the resort, unfortunately, or I’d be packing up any number of things from our stay, including a lot of cheese – Queijo de Azeitão DOP from the Victor Fernandes Queijaria is my hot cheese tip, Londoners, (the tip is hot, the cheese should be ambient temperature) for 2016, since they look likely to ramp up the export following a recent Taste Award win.
That tip and the cheese-tasting come courtesy of our chef at Adega, along with a crash-course in Portuguese cookery. He and the cataplana – a traditional copper, clamshell-shaped pan – are both subjected to some wistful photography themselves, along with the pool bar where we eat the contents of the cataplana, since all of these things seem like they’ll be hard to recreate in London.
Equally photogenic are our bedrooms in the Residence, one of the newly-refurbished clifftop buildings. The Residence has the advantage of being the closest accommodation to the beach and a side entrance that opens directly in front of the Clubhouse restaurant, with its champagne breakfast and sea-view terrace. Even more appealingly, Ocean restaurant, the two Michelin-starred feather in VILA VITA’s cap, is on the ground floor of the Residence itself. To really appreciate why a restaurant-adjacent bedroom is such a good thing here, you’d also have to appreciate just how expansive, prolonged and rich a dinner at Ocean can be. And how little interest you have after that much food – plus attendant wine-matching – in taking a leisurely stroll any further than the short flight of stairs back to your room’s palm-tree fringed terrace.
Once I’m embedded on that terrace with a nightcap, my boyfriend back in London is subjected to an extensive and, I feel, very lyrical account of the food. Starting with the deconstructed piri piri chicken, layers of crisped chicken skin wafer holding the shreds of meat and chili together, finishing with small, powerful chocolate truffles infused with balsamic and basil, and taking in each unpredictable flavour-pairing and wine-pairing in between. Conscious that this is starting to sound like boasting, and possibly like I plan to leave him for Ocean’s Executive Chef Hans Neuner, I take steps to reassure my Best Guy that without him there, it felt like one Michelin star, maybe 1.5 Michelin stars, at most.
This is, I feel, also very lyrical, but not received as well as it should be. Which is a mystery, but one I don’t have time to unravel right now. Rest is in order and tomorrow promises to be relentless: I’ll have to somehow fit a sunlounger on the beach into my schedule between breakfast and my afternoon massage. And that swim-up bar, with its stock of Herdade dos Grous moon-harvested wine?
It isn’t going to swim up to itself.
VILA VITA Parc is a member of The Leading Hotels of the World group and is at Rua Anneliese Pohl, 8400 – 450, Porches, Portugal. The nearest airport is Faro, and flights were provided by Classic Collection Holidays from London Gatwick.
Ocean restaurant is open to non-residents, though advance booking is recommended. The four-course menu is €135 per person, or €190 per person with wine-pairing.
A three night Celebration Package for two at VILA VITA Parc includes a Deluxe Room in the Residence, dinner with wine pairing at 2 Michelin-starred restaurant Ocean, and a massage for couples at VILA VITA Vital Spa, and starts at €3060 in July.
