Dining Out: All fired up in the Douro

The old signs celebrating the Scottish heritage of the Port business are still there. The steep, terraced hillsides are peppered with names from home. We glide by Graham, Dow, Cockburn and Sandeman – all now owned by the Symingtons, another dynasty with Scottish roots.

Back in Pinhão, the starting point for our short cruise, I ask our guide to book us into a good restaurant for lunch. Ominously, this proves to be not so easy. Sergio’s restaurant of choice has neither a phone number nor a website but he knows somebody who knows somebody…

Thoughts of a leisurely lunch on a shady terrace overlooking the beautiful Douro valley are receding as we set off in search of the Taberna d’Ponte. Finally, we arrive and are given a warm welcome to a large and noisy room packed with Portuguese families. More of a canteen than a restaurant, this looks challenging for a group that includes vegetarian and gluten-free diners.

But at least we don’t waste time poring over a menu. There isn’t one. Our affable waiter informs us, “We have two choices, chicken with pasta or fish with rice.” Hmm, an episode in Santiago de Cuba in the eighties springs to mind when, along with two East German engineers who were the only other occupants of the Hotel Leningrado, my photographer and I were offered two choices – “horse or horse with beans.” It turned out to be not too bad.

And so it is with the Taberna d’Ponte. Small appetisers of sliced sausage and mushroom are proffered. A carafe of the local red is plonked on the table and found to be highly quaffable. Thankfully, they do have a vegetarian option of bean stew. Our waiter, fluent in English and a gifted artist whose paintings adorn the walls of the family restaurant, is at pains to stress that if we want more of anything we should just ask. Nobody ever leaves the Taberna d’Ponte hungry he assures us.

Invariably, conversation turns to the heatwave engulfing southern Europe. Last year our holiday to Provence was threatened when wildfires temporarily closed Marseille airport and this year our villa, a few miles from Guimarães, the ancient capital of Portugal, is officially in an area at the most extreme risk of wildfires. A fact which makes last night’s spectacular fireworks display by the local village totally mind blowing. Temperatures are expected to reach 39 degrees and the breeze for which Portugal is famed feels like a hairdryer. The news from Bordeaux, my favourite French city, is alarming – it is threatened by a fire with a perimeter of 120 kilometres and its own weather system. Portugal’s worst wildfire is a one-hour drive away from the house.

The main courses arrive. They will never feature in a glossy colour supplement but are tasty and hearty. The plating up looks like it could have been done by Desperate Dan, with a hangover. But the chicken tastes like real chicken and is plentiful with a light tomato and mushroom sauce. It comes with a thumping large bowl of spaghetti. It is the sort of rustic fare needed by the workmen who occupy the neighbouring tables. The vegetarian stew of beans and veg is also found to be very good and satisfying.

For a dessert, or ‘pudim’ as the Portuguese have it, our waiter sells us on the house speciality – ‘Drunken Cake’, a dark sponge with a crispy top and soaked in the Douro’s most famous product – Port. This boozy confection is a hit and an appreciative silence descends on the table. It’s a pretty good lunch for four at 81 euros – with coffee.

Back at the villa and cooling off in the pool I watch two firefighting flying boats as they pass overhead towards the fires to our east and I think of current debate among scientists as to whether there is life on Mars. I imagine that there is and that Martians are allotted various planets to keep an eye on. The alien monitoring our planet reports to his boss “Earth is on fire!” The incredulous superior retorts, “What are they doing about it?”

Answer: “Nothing. They’re too busy fighting each other.”

Oh dear. Pass the Port somebody…