If they were to open a seafood restaurant, they might be tempted to call it Ocean. But in the hands of chef Hans Neuner, Portugal’s two-Michelin-starred Ocean is much more ambitious than that.
In the sea-view restaurant that is the spectacle of the luxurious Vila Vita Parc hotel in the Algarve, Neuner and his long-time team make clever use of local fish and seafood, but also explore the role the oceans have played. in history, cultural and political, of course, but in this case also gastronomic.
It is the oceans that led Portuguese navigators on their voyages of discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, and it is still the oceans that unite peoples and cultures. And so, yes, while much of what happens on the ocean plates is captured in Near the Waters, the concept of “ocean” doesn’t just refer to the creatures it contains.
It’s the connections, the blending, the growth, and the learning you get from traveling around the world. Neuner was born in Austria and worked there in old-school gourmet kitchens as a teenager. There he learned discipline, rigor and technique, which still serve as a basis today. base for all the terroir, seasonality, and ethical considerations that have been added to everyone’s recipes in 2024.
After working in high-end gastronomy around the world, he moved to the Algarve in 2007. While Portugal has had many delicious dishes in its history, in the early 2000s it was just beginning to write its gastronomic language. Many ingredients still had to be imported from France and Spain. Neuner was one of the first authors. (It’s safe to say that outsiders who see things with fresh eyes can become some of the biggest proponents of those things. )
Neuner has been hired to take over Ocean’s kitchen at Vila Vita Parc, a full-service, five-star hotel near the centre of the Algarve that has been the standard-bearer of Portuguese luxury for more than three decades. The 203-room hotel encompasses 54 acres of gardens and 12 restaurants and 7 bars, but it’s with Ocean that the owners and manager hoped to make their mark on the culinary world.
The dining room creates an appropriate setting, with its sea views, Murano glass chandeliers and a collection of coral-shaped ceramics that look like they were plucked from the sea. A macramé tapestry incorporates subtly colored lighting fixtures and seashell motifs, a sophisticated observation on the precarious health of the world’s oceans without any of the overt discourses that have seeped into gastronomy in recent times. (Could world leaders achieve this with edible plastic as a comment?)
Neuner temporarily found his rhythm and earned his first Michelin star at Ocean in 2009 and his second in 2011. (Expectations were high for a third-place finish in Portugal’s first independent guide, announced last month, as many food observers feel the place to eat deserves one. ) And as the chef is an expert and aficionado of candied carabineiro prawns, succulent oysters and premium tuna from the waters of the Atlantic, he has also been encouraged through the Portuguese Discoveries.
He began making plans to dive deep into exploring the great pause and the mirror image of 2020. Subtly the concept evolves its concept one year with a new menu encouraged through another old itinerary. Since then, he and his team have embarked on a long gastronomic adventure of both one and both years to find inspiration and the best in their techniques.
A dish is served in the Ocean.
As a result of this fashionable discovery, a few years ago a “Ruta de la India” menu was born that started in Portugal, passed through Africa and ended with influences from Goa. Last year he brought “Memories of Brazil,” with a menu that reinvented feijoada in a subtle dish and evoked a sublime moqueca with skate, red shrimp and trout roe.
For his newest menu, he ventured further. The most recent recognition took the team to Asia: the prominent fish markets and tempura parlors of Tokyo, the bustling street food stalls of Bangkok and Macau, and the eateries of Seoul. Thus, the last menu stages and reinvents the cultural and gastronomic exchanges between East and West over the course of 14 moments.
“Asia Expedition” has clever, conceptual names for the dish. First Flight Déjà Retardé, the first official dish of the night, combines goose liver, mango and cinnamon. One Night in Bangkok offers sole, kohlrabi and Kampot pepper. “Peixinhos da Horta” (his quotes, not mine) tries to play with the question of whether the Portuguese brought tempura to Japan with a presentation of melted fish and green beans in tempura.
Presentation of the bread course is encouraged through the chef’s fishing socket box.
The highlight of the menu, at least visually, is called the Lotus Flower. Each serving is presented in a beautiful ceramic lotus flower, with a small box (about the length expected of a caviar) presented in the center. , king crab, Dutch ponzu and trout roe are layered. The flavors, like the presentation of this dish and so many others at Neuner’s Ocean, are sensitive and complex.
Several dishes were served at a recent four-person dinner with chef Javier Torres of Barcelona’s three-star Cocina Hermanos Torres. Although the expected name associated with a three-star meeting didn’t come to fruition, it’s evident that the dining room puts in a commitment to quality, a knack for presentation, and an appreciation for overall storytelling. Precise service, top-notch Portuguese and foreign wines flowed freely, and as the moonlight danced over the ocean outside, it was clear that this restaurant was shining. brilliantly.