About austa

With a focus on honest eating, thinking, and drinking, Austa is a restaurant, coffee shop, kitchen, and community connected to the land in the Algarve, Southern Portugal. Our mission is to provide a platform for the small, independent projects and producers of the Atlantic and Andalusian coasts. These quality-driven minds provide us with seasonal ingredients and stories. We are proud to share them, and we believe they represent a better future for food, both in our region and beyond. Chefs Philosophy: The menu at austa shifts and evolves with the seasons crop and catch - led always by provenance and the purpose of simplicity. To add to our purveyors lot, the bounty of our vegetable garden - planted and freshly picked by the team before service - is handed to the kitchen and combined to create plates to share that are influenced by our surroundings, experiences and memories of good food. Why Austa Stands Out: Honest Eating: In a seasonal tourist location that seems increasingly driven by margins - austa chooses instead to focus on a more honest experience for our guests. Seeking out organic and chemical free producers who put the quality of their seeds, soil and livestock first - and being openly honest about the challenges that arise through this pursuit - creating conversation with our customers both in person and on the plate in order to provide a platform for the stories of the inspiring projects that are part of our own. Local Producers: We constantly collect and cultivate a network of local growers and farmers to ensure minimal mileage in our food and to minimise its carbon footprint while shining a spotlight on our region - protecting it’s heritage, gastronomical traditions and environment. By sharing knowledge with customers and other businesses like our own we seek to cultivate demand, and therefore new generations of producers to get involved in the honest supply chain at all levels rather than leaving for big cities. Seasonal Ingredients: We choose to work with a small and dynamic menu that can constantly reflect our suppliers’ current crop and the growers’ calendar, rather than insisting on out-of season items that need to be imported from different climates - with energy wasted on freezing and refrigeration, and large carbon footprints from transport. Wine: Those visiting austa will not find the wines we serve in any other restaurant in the immediate area. Our list is made up of bottles from small and independent producers of organic, natural, biodynamic and low intervention wine from across Portugal and nearby Andalusia. These winemakers make limited quantities of wine which means we rotate our wine list regularly allowing guests to try new things often. We also have almost our entire list open by the glass too so guests can take their own journeys and experiment in trying new things.