Dining · BRASA
Lunch with your feet in the sand
Eighty-six covers under a slatted pine roof at the seaward foot of the ridge, 140 m from the water line. The fire is lit at 09:30 and is cooking by 11:15.
- Covers
- 86
- Lunch
- Daily, 12:30–16:00
- Dinner
- Thu–Sun, 19:00–22:30
- Fuel
- Holm oak
The room
One fire, 3.6 m long, and no other heat
BRASA is a timber frame on a sand floor with a grill down one side of it. The kitchen cooks on coals and on nothing else — there is no gas line in the building, because there is no gas on this side of the ridge.
The grill is a 3.6 m bar over a rack that cranks to four heights, 120 to 480 mm above the coals. Holm oak is burned down in a separate box for about 100 minutes until it is ember with no flame left in it, then shovelled under the bars; the kitchen gets through roughly 65 kg of wood in a full day of service. Directly under the bars at the low setting it reads 480 °C, which is why a 1.2 kg fish takes eleven minutes and a plate of prawns takes ninety seconds.
The room seats 86 at twenty-one tables — nineteen of four and two of five — on bleached oak, with the floor left as sand and raked each morning before the ice bed is set. The roof is slatted maritime pine on a 60 mm pitch, which at midday in July puts half the table in shadow and moves that shadow across the plates while you eat. Fourteen canvas parasols cover the seaward row.
It is a four-minute walk from the pavilions: 740 m, of which 210 m is boardwalk over the dune, and a buggy runs the route every ten minutes from 12:00 until the end of service for anyone who would rather not take the sand.
The ice bed
What the kitchen actually buys
Fish is bought in the morning at Sines, 32 km down the coast, and at Setúbal, 55 km north, off whatever the boats landed. It comes to the pavilion on ice at 10:40, the bed is set at 11:00, and the board is chalked at the same moment — which is the reason this page can tell you how the fish is cooked but not which fish will be there.
What recurs: robalo and dourada between 600 g and 1.4 kg; sargo, the best value on the bed and the one the kitchen pushes for two people; carapau in high summer, three to a skewer; cavala in spring; choco and polvo year round; razor clams after a low spring tide; and rose shrimp from the coastal boats, which are sweet enough that salt and a grill is the entire recipe.
You choose off the ice, the fish is weighed in front of you, and it is sold at €11.50 per 100 g — scaled, grilled whole on a hand clamp, carved at the table if you want it carved. Nothing on the lunch bed is carried over: it is struck at 16:00 and dinner, on the four nights there is dinner, starts on a new one.
- Landed at Sines (32 km south) and Setúbal (55 km north), bought the same morning
- Ice bed set at 11:00; the board is chalked then, not the night before
- Whole fish €11.50 per 100 g, indicative — a 1.2 kg sargo feeds two
- Fish between 600 g and 2.4 kg; the big ones are sold for the table
- Lunch ice struck at 16:00; dinner starts on a fresh bed
- By weight
- €11.50 / 100 g
- Ports
- Sines, Setúbal
Or, more simply
The three-course table
Lunch and dinner can also be taken as three courses drawn from the same carte, at one price. Choose one from each, and the kitchen will know what the fire has to do before you sit down.
Service
| Service | Days | Hours | What is cooking |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lunch | Daily | 12:30–16:00, last order 15:30 | The full carte and the whole fish from the ice bed set at 11:00 |
| Afternoon | Daily | 16:00–18:00 | Coffee, pastéis de nata from the 17:00 tray, pine ice cream — from the pass only |
| Dinner | Thursday to Sunday | 19:00–22:30, last order 21:45 | The full carte, a fresh ice bed, and the second fire lit for the rib |
86 covers. Lunch takes walk-ins and usually has room before 13:00 and after 14:30; dinner is four services a week and is better reserved. The grill goes out between 16:00 and 18:00 while the coals are rebuilt.
The walk down
740 m, of which 210 m is boardwalk
The path leaves the arrival court between two pines, runs 530 m on sand under the canopy, then climbs the ridge on 210 m of timber boardwalk and drops to the restaurant on the seaward side. It takes most people about nine minutes and is the best argument for lunch at BRASA rather than anywhere else on the estate.
The boardwalk is 1.6 m wide with a continuous handrail and a 1:20 gradient, so it takes a wheelchair or a pushchair without assistance; the buggy runs the same route every ten minutes from 12:00 and will stop anywhere along it. Towels and a rinse stand sit at the restaurant end, because most people arrive at lunch straight off the beach and leave the sand where it belongs.
- 740 m from the arrival court, about nine minutes
- 210 m of boardwalk, 1.6 m wide, 1:20, handrail both sides
- Buggy every ten minutes from 12:00 to the end of service
- Rinse stand and towels at the restaurant end
Practical
Come as you are off the beach. The floor is sand, nobody here is wearing shoes at lunch, and the only concession the room asks for is a shirt at dinner because the evening gets cold quickly on this coast once the sun is off the water.
The nortada blows most summer afternoons and the room is built for it: the seaward side carries canvas blinds that drop to the rail, and above about 30 km/h the ice bed and the pass move under the deep part of the roof while service continues.
In a real Atlantic blow the restaurant closes and the whole carte is cooked at A CASA up the hill that day, on the indoor grill, which is announced at reception by 10:00 so nobody walks down for nothing.
Half plates from the coals at any hour the grill is lit, high chairs, and a bowl of Sado rice for anyone who is not interested in fish. The sand floor means the room is loud and nobody minds; it is the opposite end of the estate from MIRANTE in every sense.
Dogs staying in one of the villas are welcome at the four sand tables on the seaward row at lunch, where there is a water bowl and shade from 12:00. They are not seated inside the roofline at dinner service.
Yes, on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday evening when there is no dinner service. The room does 86 seated or 120 standing with the tables cleared, the grill is the same grill, and the fish is bought that morning for the number of people coming. Write to [email protected] and the events desk will answer with what the fire can realistically do in an evening.
Lunch is daily. Dinner is Thursday to Sunday.
Walk in at lunch, or reserve the ice bed's best fish before it is on it. For the room to yourself, the events desk takes BRASA on the three nights the kitchen is otherwise dark.