Tavira Longue is a lovely place which offers something a little different to the many other restaurants and cafes you will find all over Tavira. It's open throughout the day and well into the wee small hours; hot food is only available during normal restaurant hours but you can get some cold tapas at most other times. If you are drinking or eating in the stylish elegant room, you also get the benefit of free Wi-Fi should you need to get online.
After dropping in for a drink a few times during our mini break we decided to have a long, lazy lunch here on our final afternoon in Tavira. We arrived around 1pm to find the little terrace, situated a few buildings down from the Longue itself, fully occupied so we killed some time by visiting the nearby camera obscura. When we returned around 2pm the terrace was almost empty and we got a nice shady table right by the river. I should mention that this is not really a terrace as such, just a few tables and chairs which have been placed on what would appear to be a semi-public piece of ground between the road and the river wall. Having said that it is a lovely spot and sitting here you get perhaps the best views of the Roman bridge and the river Gilao.
After a beer and a look at the short but well thought through tapas menu we kicked off by sharing a lovely crostini with fresh local cheese, tomato and avocado. By the time we had finished our crostini time was ticking on and our friendly waiter informed us that if we wanted any hot food we should order now. Well we did, so we cracked on with a plate of calamari. While this was not a patch on the dish we ate at the Brisa, it was pretty tasty but a little greasy. We followed it up with a very nice smoked salmon quiche and some salad. We also had a mixed cheese and meat sharing plate which keep us grazing away through the afternoon.
Not too sure what we were drinking other than that is was a white wine I have a feeling it was a bottle of Planalto which would have cost around the 10 euro mark.
When it finally came time to pay the bill it was very handy that they accepted credit cards, unlike a lot of other establishments in Tavira, as we were running low on euros and still needed to buy a bottle or two of port for the return to Blighty. All in all a very pleasant way to end our all too brief stay in Tavira. read more