Using mainly products originating in Monchique, favoring local labor and decoration with local handicrafts are just some of the conditions for restaurants in the municipality of Monchique to sign the Quality Commitment Letter.
This Saturday, under the XVI Ham Fair and the II Medronho Festival of Monchique, which end today, responsible for 15 restaurants signed, with the presidents of the Algarve Chamber and Tourism, the Letter of Commitment, the first of its kind to be implemented in the entire Algarve region.
In total, 35 establishments will adhere to this commitment, which aims to qualify the Monchique restaurant offer, within the scope of the City Council's strategy, which defined Gastronomic Tourism as one of the four key products in the development of the county's tourism offer.
On the same occasion, the Monchique Gastronomic Agenda was also announced, with each month associated with a different product from the mountains.
«The restaurants in Monchique are the showcase of what is produced in the municipality. They create jobs and are a showcase of our tradition, our gastronomy, our agricultural products», highlighted the Mayor Rui André.
“Restoration is an increasingly important sector in tourism and must be governed by standards of quality and authenticity. We have to know how to sell the county through gastronomy. For all these reasons, in addition to the signing of the Letter of Commitment, the Gastronomic Agenda was also defined”, added the Monchique mayor.
Rui André added that “if we can get the restaurants to start buying our agricultural products, we will also be encouraging a lot of people to return to the land. This will be creating networks of interest, in which the first allies are the restaurants».
For his part, Desidério Silva, president of the Algarve Tourism Board, underlined the “extraordinary bet” that Monchique has made in Nature Tourism and Gastronomic Tourism, “in addition to the Sun and Beach Tourism of the coast”.
Among the restaurant owners who this Saturday signed the Letter of Commitment with the Algarve Chamber and Tourism, Mr. Fernando, from Restaurante Paraíso da Montanha, in statements to the Sul Informação, stressed the importance of this commitment "in our products" to "attract more people". Mr. Ademar, from Restaurante Parque, for his part, stressed the importance of “making known our gastronomic traditions”.
José Canelas, owner of «Luar da Fóia», for his part, stressed that «the offer of our traditional products is what makes the difference in relation to other restaurants in the Algarve».
To mark the restaurants that sign this Letter of Commitment, which, in essence, is a guarantee of the quality and genuineness of the restaurant's offer, they will bear a guarantee seal.
Chamber president Rui André added, in an interview with Sul Informação, that “this Letter is, as the name says, a commitment. Some Monchique restaurants will have a harder time meeting all the requirements, but what matters is your willingness to get there. There is a whole path of quality and excellence to be followed».
But it's not just the restaurants that make a commitment – “the City Council is also committed to supporting them in everything possible on this journey, and in particular in bridging the gap between restaurants and agricultural producers in the county, who are mostly small. farmers. How can we get Monchique mushrooms or Monchique game to restaurants? It is difficult for now, with all the bureaucratic obstacles that exist. But it is the commitment of the Chamber to build a network that connects all these aspects», guaranteed the Monchiquense mayor.
A Gastronomic Agenda with a different offer every month
With the Gastronomic Agenda, added Rui André, “we want the restaurants to commit to making dishes based on local agricultural products, but which, traditionally, only exist at certain times of the year. It will be a way of associating the catering offer with the product of the season».
In your interview with Sul Informação, the mayor added that the idea of making this Gastronomic Agenda with monthly events linked to the products of each period came to him when he read the book by English sociologist Robin Jenkins, entitled «The Road to Alto», published in the late 70s, and which, in Portugal, published in 1983, was named «Morte de uma Aldeia Portuguesa». In the book, which described the life of the peasants of Alto, a place in the parish of Alferce, the author made “a list of the products that were collected and consumed at each time of the year”. And it was on this list that Monchique's Gastronomic Agenda was based.
Thus, under the motto “12 names, 12 months, 12 images”, January will be the month of Flavors from Mort'Porc, February for the Exhibit Gastronomic of Sausages, March for Flavors of Lent, April for Meats from the Oven, May the Flavors of May (especially the May cake), June the Potato and Lemon Flavors, July the Presunto Gastronomic Show, August the Assadas na Serra (of fish, but also of Monchiquense roasting), September is the month of Taste of the Chicken Coop, October is the month of Pratos do Campo, November is the two Flavors of Autumn and, finally, December is the month of the Christmas Gastronomic Show.
Some of these months are associated with events in the scope of gastronomy and mountain products that have already asserted themselves, such as the Enchidos, Presunto, Medronho or Potato and Limão fairs.
To reinforce all this commitment to Gastronomic Tourism, within the scope of the candidacy that the Chamber of Monchique made to European funds to restructure its website, «the Monchique website will appear completely renovated, with new functions», announced Rui André. One of these new features will be a gastronomic portal, with information about gastronomy products, the places where to buy them and all the restaurants in the municipality.
Rui André also makes a point of stressing that the definition of the rules of the Letter of Commitment to Restaurants or of the Monchique Gastronomic Agenda was carried out «in a very interesting process, of working with the restaurants. It is those responsible for suggesting many of the aspects that make up the Charter and the themes for the Agenda. If we want all this to be a commitment made by everyone, there has to be this involvement, this participation, this network».
Discover here, in detail, the Quality Commitment Letter of the Monchique Restoration.
Veja here more pictures the Ham Fair and the signing of the Letter of Commitment.
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