Estaminé Restaurant

“Seen from above it looks like a crab". This is what it says about the architecture of the building in a specialist publication. But apart from wanting to create a building that fitted well with the surrounding landscape, we didn’t want it to interfere with the well-being of the Island. The lack of any public infrastructure meant that we had to come up with ideas for producing energy, making drinking water and dealing with the drains.

While Estaminé has been proud to call the banks of Ria Formosa home since 1987, the structure you find today is a reinvention of the restaurant, crafted in 2007, with sustainability in mind.

As the sole permanent tenant of Ilha Deserta, we sought new ways to minimize our environmental impact and harness the abundance of renewable resources the island has to offer. Solar panels perched atop and alongside the building now produce nearly the entirety of our power requirements year-round, and collected groundwater purified by reverse osmosis comprises the restaurant’s water supply.

When seen from above, the restaurant itself takes the shape of a crab among the sand dunes, an architectural tribute to our smaller neighbors scuttling along the shoreline. Gazing out at your surroundings, you might notice the wooden path that branches out from the timbers of the restaurant and into the unspoiled wild.

Crafted to help guests traverse the island, the boardwalk meanders west before turning south at Cape St. Mary to reunite with the shores of the Atlantic two kilometers later. A short walk along the beach will return you to the restaurant or to the pier, which we have also created to make your journey to and from Ilha Deserta as smooth as possible.