The Cataplana Pilgrimage

The cataplana is both the dish and the vessel: a hinged copper pot, shaped like a clam, that seals almost airtight so everything inside steams in its own juices. Into it goes whatever the Atlantic delivered that morning - prawns, clams, mussels, sometimes monkfish or cuttlefish - with tomato, onion, garlic, white wine, a scattering of chourico for smokiness and a fistful of fresh coriander at the end. It's the Algarve's defining dish, and the moment the waiter cracks the pot open at the table is the whole performance.

You can eat cataplana across southern Portugal, but Faro is where you should. It's the Algarve's quiet, sun-bleached capital - a walled old town, a lagoon, terracotta rooftops - and it's fifteen minutes from the airport by bus. No resort strip, no tourist-menu translations, just a proper Portuguese city where the fishermen's catch is on the table by lunch. Fly in, crack open a copper pot, mop the broth with bread, and fly home smelling faintly of garlic and the sea.