Steve B.
Google
My girlfriend and I have just returned from our Portuguese vacation where we spent 8 nights in Santa Cruz. The Boca Santa restaurant was by far the best that we ate at, there are many others that are very good but Boca Santa is wonderful.
The quality of the food is excellent! With a great mix of local delicacies and other dishes that lean towards a more international flavour, there is plenty to choose from their refreshingly modest menu. We’re never fans of encyclopedic menus; less is more and quality and freshness of ingredients should be priorities as they most certainly are at Boca Santa.
The food aside, the restaurant has an incredible location with various seating options. It sits beside the historic, and soon to be restored, Mar Lindo restaurant and tea room, an evocative remnant of former seaside times in Santa Cruz. My girlfriend and I were fortunate enough to have great weather and we were able to watch the beautiful sunsets from the terrace as we snacked on olives, bread and cheese, all locally sourced, with chilled glasses of vinho verde. However, it can be very windy along the coast and so the restaurant offers a kind of ‘indoor/ outdoor’ space with a few tables in a sun room at the front with equally majestic views of the Atlantic horizon.
The interior of the restaurant proper is so wonderfully cozy, beautifully decorated and in keeping with its maritime location in a bistro style. We dined on the Bacalhau á Boca, which is so beautifully presented as to be as much a feast on the eyes as it is on the palette.
For us, the thing that brought us back time and again was the friendliness of the owner. Such a charming, well travelled man who made us feel like we were his only guests, a true gentleman and so proud of his kitchen creations.
This is a bar restaurant, perhaps a bistro but that said, the location, food quality, decor and professionalism of its staff, lends itself to far grander establishments.
Thank you so much Boca Santa for beautifully embellishing our visit to Santa Cruz
5⭐️