“Vila Viçosa, vila de conventos,
não tem a glória só dos monumentos,
possui outros encantos e delícias…

Ó minha terra, por menor que fosses,
serias sempre grande nos teus doces,
milagre divinal de mãos patrícias!”

“Vila Viçosa, town of convents,
its glory is wider than its monuments,
it has other enchants and delicacies…

Oh, my homeland, littler you were,
You would ever be great in your sweets,
Divine miracle of so familiar hands!”

              José Emídio Amaro

 To discover the gastronomy of the Alentejo is surely a pleasure. Inspired in the Mediterranean trilogy – bread, olive oil and wine – allied to iron metallurgy and to the potter’s wheel insertion, the communities who lived here associated the aromatic herbs with the agricultural change, and so also the eating habits were transformed giving rise to the cooking art.
 The heritage of registered recipes is indescribable. In a few miles distance the same recipe has several versions according to the local products. We can take the açorda (bread stewed in water with garlic and corianders among other ingredients) as an example. Even if its main ingredients are the olive oil, aromatic herbs and bread, the accompaniments vary with the seasons and regions. We can eat açordas with olives, codfish, roasted sardines, whiting, cockles, fried fish, eggs, figs or grapes…
 Seasonality is an important factor to the gastronomy in the Alentejo.
 Our gastronomy offers you, among other delicacies, the traditional Cação soup, tomato soup, and migas à alentejana (fried bread with olive oil, garlic as main ingredients). To accompany them we suggest an excellent Alentejo wine.
 As typical dishes we serve from the cold gaspacho (cold mixture of tomato, cucumber, onion, garlic, parsley, vinegar, olive oil, etc.) to the hot açorda with eggs, roasted codfish or sardines, tomato, da panela, cação, potato or beldroegas soups, to the migas à alentejana with fried mid-ribs, lamb stew or the roasted lamb, the cozido à alentejana (boiled beef and pork with vegetables, sausage, potato, etc), or even the smoked sausages to accompany a good favada (stewed broad beans).
 Don’t forget to try our conventual sweet recipes as the famous Tibornas with almonds and gila (a kind of pumpkin), the Sericá (kind of cake made with sugar, eggs, flour and milk and powered with cinnamon) with oriental origins, Sweet Rice, queijadas (cakes made with cheese, eggs, milk and a fine layes of dough.), Nógados, Bolos Fintos, Filhós and Azevias, among other dainties of the old conventual flavour.
 It can be said that the Alentejo cuisine reaches in these regions the excellence of an art.