Fast

izzy’s market, vila do bispo

If you are en route to Cabo de São Vicente, you should take the opportunity to visit IZZY’S MARKET in Vila do Bispo. This restaurant is a little hard to find, being located in a housing development between the town hall and that supermarket with the blue and yellow logo. Furthermore, it isn’t always easy to find a place to park in Senhora do Amparo. The place in question is a small café which also doubles as an organic food shop. We can particularly recommend the lunchtime dishes of the day. When we were there, it was full. Izzy, the chef, often peeks through the hatch to get a sense of the atmosphere in the room…

The service is fast. A short while after we ordered, the soups — one polenta, the other cream of mushroom with peas and herbs — were served. We eat them with a spoon and, besides being very satisfying, these flavours which we discover in Vila do Bispo are exciting because of how special they are. They are flavours which, apart from their culinary merit, bring other dimensions to the table: this food is not just intended to fill you up.

Every recipe — as those who cook will know — has a legacy, an element of creativity, and is connected to the origins of its ingredients. For people who cook, these are all fundamental features of the culinary art. Ancient varieties of corn grown in good soil are a historic ingredient, real food, treated with an intrinsic wisdom that today you cannot help but publicise and pay tribute to. It is cultivated by older generations on the west coast, on dry land with little water, and just like magic —  drawing on their ancestral knowledge — they grow hundreds of cobs from just a handful of seeds. Now that’s agriculture. Let’s leave the rest be — that which comes from Monsanto’s laboratories — since anything that’s genetically modified shouldn’t even be used to feed dogs, cats or chickens. When buying animal feed, I often recommend that people read the list of ingredients included. If there is anything suspicious there, don’t buy it. Industries are misleading us big-time, all of the time, mixing GM corn in with feed.

Let’s return to IZZY’S. Here, you can eat vegetarian food without realising that it is vegetarian. I have only been a vegetarian for one year – I no longer eat the meat of dead animals.

Piglets are as sweet as cats or dogs. Would you eat a cat or a dog? Pigs could be our friends, but instead of this, we shoot them – and I have to add that this diet has been very good for my health. It gets better still when I am served polenta made with good corn, which has a lovely colour and a great taste, soft and just right in terms of the amount – neither too much, nor too little. Next, the dessert.

Homemade coconut ice cream with a brownie and a chocolate mousse. There are always two of us here to review – we arrive without identifying ourselves, then we ask for the bill and pay. It is only the following day, when remembering this meal with fondness, that we open the computer and recommend it.

Izzy’s Market
Isaura Maria Arouca

Urb. Senhora do Amparo, Lt 13, Lj5 • 8650 Vila do Bispo | Telefone: 282 639 153
Open Monday to Saturday for breakfast and lunch.
Lunch for two people with three soups, two fresh juices, two main courses and two desserts, €21,30.
Pontuação • Score • Bewertung: 12/15

Uwe Heitkamp

traduções: Fernando Medronho & Chris Young | fotografias: Theobald Tiger