The Cataplana of Faro

The cataplana is the Algarve's signature dish — a slow-cooked stew of clams, prawns, and often chouriço, sealed inside a hinged copper vessel that gives both the dish and its name to the region's kitchens. This experience is built around learning to make one. The morning starts on foot in Faro's old town, passing the Sé de Faro cathedral on the way to the Mercado Municipal, where the chef walks you through the day's catch and the seasonal produce that will go into the pot. You’ll learn what to look for in fresh clams, what fish comes from the Atlantic vs. the Ria Formosa lagoon, which vegetables are in season. Once you've chosen your ingredients, you move to a nearby professional kitchen for the workshop. You'll prepare the cataplana from the sofrito up — building the base of onion, garlic, and olive oil, layering in the seafood and vegetables, sealing the copper vessel, and letting it steam. The session ends around the table, eating what you've made.

Most travelers meet the cataplana in restaurants across the Algarve — the copper vessel arrives at the table, the lid comes off with a plume of steam, and the meal begins. Actually learning to cook one, in a working kitchen with a chef, is far rarer — and this experience starts in the old town, so the day builds context before it builds the dish. The dish itself is a legacy of the Moorish period in southern Portugal (roughly the 8th to 13th centuries) — a cousin of the North African tagine, adapted by Algarve coppersmiths into the sealed form the region still uses today. Before it became a fixture in Algarve kitchens, the same clamshell shape let fishermen carry the day's ingredients and cook the catch over an open fire, without ever changing pots. The clamshell design works like an early pressure cooker: sealed shut, it traps steam so the dish cooks in its own juices rather than losing them to the air. Understanding that rhythm is what you take home, more than the recipe.

You'll be accompanied by a guide from João's team for the walk through the old town. Your cooking session is led by a professional Faro-based chef who works with regional Algarvian cooking — the slow braises and seafood traditions that come out of the Ria Formosa lagoon and the coastal towns nearby. With experience across both traditional and contemporary kitchens, they teach with a focus on the technique behind the dish and the market ingredients that make it worth doing well. Their working relationships with local producers shape what ends up in the pot on any given day.

Comfortable walking shoes, clothing suitable for a kitchen environment, a notebook or phone for recipes and notes, and a camera for photos.