Restaurants and Cafés

This is already an institution in Mourão. Everybody knows Adega Velha for the tavern where the men of the town go to enjoy themselves, for the old radios that decorate the rooms or the clay pots that one day stored the wine it produced. The old vaulted ceilings, the imposing cupboards that today serve as sideboards but once belonged to a grocer’s shop, the centuries-old mirrors and the photographs or paintings of the region: and especially Maria dos Anjos’ skill in the kitchen, which she uses to bring back traditional Alentejo aromas.   

A well-laden table, as they say in the region, is always embellished with the bread of the area, fresh and appetising, accompanied by small and well-seasoned olives, in addition to the Évora Cheese PDO or fresh goat’s cheese. Cured sheep’s cheese or Alentejo pork paio sausage are also among the starters. As to the main dishes there is dogfish soup, chickpea stew and meat broth, the meats and sausages of which are flavoured with mint, the smell of the land. Oven-roasted pork tenderloin, Adega Velha’s own partridge and stewed hare add to the almost always staple menu, only altered around Easter at the time the very popular lamb is added.  

To finish off the meal there are three traditional desserts made with eggs and sugar: rançoso or cake made with eggs, almonds, sugar and black-seed squash, manjar real and encharcada.  

The red wines produced by the owner are best straight from the jug to be drunk with the meal, albeit there is white wine for the warmer days. The service is warm, friendly and competent.