Comporta: Portugal's best secret beach spot
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Some people will want to say Comporta in the same breath as Ibiza, but, really, they're missing the point altogether. Comporta is not Ibiza. It is not St Tropez 30 years ago. It is not Montauk or Tarifa, Oualidia or Trancoso. On the global list of languid beach hotspots, the closest, most relevant where-shall-we-compare-it-to is José Ignacio in Uruguay, for that bleached-wood, barefoot, blustery kind of vibe, but, actually, it's not that similar. Comporta strikes out on its own path. It is unlike anywhere you have been before.
The name Comporta, roughly translated, means a gate that holds back water, a lock. Which makes sense when you see how many canals there are. This is rice-paddy land. Great, stripey fields of rice, the biggest in Portugal, stretch all the way down the coast, sheltered from the stiff Atlantic breezes by sand dunes. They are kept green and bounteous by a crisscross of irrigation canals. In the heat of summer, when the rest of the country (bar the Algarve golf courses) is dusty and dry, this area still thrums with life.
Rice farmers have been in Comporta since the beginning of time, as have the fishermen and salt makers. They have shaped the look of the landscape in this part of Portugal, dotted with cork oaks, covered with glowing red poppies and yellow carpets of wildflowers, and conserved the unique architecture - small, low-built, thatched cabanas, hooped with tightly packed grasses from the riverbanks and beams of wood from the pine forests.
Sandy fields bulge with organic courgettes and broccoli and pumpkins as sweet as pudding. In high summer, makeshift stalls pepper the side of the road, piled with watermelons, artichokes, tomatoes that taste of sunshine. Knobbly lemons the size of grapefruit hang heavy from the trees. The ground pours forth flowers and vegetables and fruit. It's hard to think of anywhere else so fertile, so abundant. Here is a rustic, fuss-free way of life. And it seems unperturbed by the nascent fair-weather visitors.
Comporta is a village on the west coast of Portugal, about an hour's drive from Lisbon. But when people talk about Comporta, what they really mean is the region around it. The Herdade da Comporta is a swoop of coast between the Sado Estuary and the sea, 12,500 hectares comprising seven hamlets: Pego, Carvalhal, Brejos, Torre, Possanco, Carrasqueira and Comporta, too.
The area is well looked after, not only because much of it is a highly protected nature reserve (look out for huge nesting storks and flamingoes in the river), but because it is owned and managed by the Espírito Santo, the country's leading banking group. These two factors have kept this slice of the Alentejo astonishingly preserved and pristine.
From Easter onwards, people descend from the rest of Europe in quiet droves to stay in the traditional but vamped-up, candy-striped village huts. The smartest families have rooted themselves in Brejos, where the Espírito Santo clan has a cluster of houses. Interior designer Vera Iachia is part of that dynasty and her collection of cabanas, with their polished-concrete floors, wood beams and cushioned day-beds, has set the tone. There are no gates, no tarmac, no high walls. Instead, sandy tracks lead from one unassuming cottage to the next. Their neighbours are savvy, connected Lisboans, Parisians, Brazilians. French designer Jacques Grange, German artist Anselm Kiefer and model Farida Khelfa (Schiaparelli's new muse) all have houses here. Kiefer has two. The Casiraghis drop by in July and August to stay with Charlotte's godmother, Albina du Boisrouvray, and Sarkozy and Carla have been spotted further down the coast near Muda. Everyone pootles around in beat-up golf buggies or Mini Mokes, or on sit-up-and-beg bicycles.
Read our pick of the best hotels in Comporta.
The best villas in Comporta
The other way to really get under the skin in Comporta is to rent a villa. Founder of interiors store Homes in Heaven, Miguel Pires de Lima, has a spectacular party house, Possanco (from about £420 per night), made up of thatched cabanas centred around a sunny deck.
Comporta Concierge looks after a stunning whitewashed charmer near Carrasqueira: one-bed Casa do Guisado (about £1,010 per week) which is beautifully remote and charming.
Nearer the river, there's the often-photographed Casas Na Areia (from about £425 per night), owned by TAP pilot João Rodrigues. He enlisted architect Manuel Aires Mateus, shortlisted for the Mies van der Rohe Award, to breathe life into four traditional masonry buildings. The result is a thing of beauty: a clever mix of the old and the new, with muslin drapes, a deep Gervasoni sofa, anglepoise lights craning over the beds and tree stumps as side tables. Huge glass doors open onto a little slice of nature reserve. A pool, slim, sleek and narrow, with pale, pale water, is framed by thick-mattressed, charcoal-coloured sunbeds. The sitting room has a floor of sand. In the summer, the mini indoor dunes are perfectly cool underfoot.
Still few and far between are the highly designed modern numbers so prevalent elsewhere in Europe. The Herdade da Comporta has rigorous planning restrictions on what can and can't be built within its jurisdiction. In Muda, about 10km south of Comporta village, the constraints are relaxed and the architects have run with it.
Enormous villa 3 Bicas (about £6,830 per week) makes the punchiest statement - about as far removed from a simple fishermen's hut as possible, with towering glass walls, sharp edges and Eames furniture.
And, of course, there are Airbnbs aplenty to enjoy in the area. This eco chalet option in Carvalhal is intimate and cosy; ideal for couples looking to immerse themselves in the area. For larger groups, this house which sleeps eight has its own pool and garden, so you can celebrate late summer evenings at home, with a glass of wine in-hand. For uninterrupted views of the rice fields, Casa Alfazema ticks all boxes.
The best restaurants in Comporta
There are a handful of restaurants along this glorious stretch, wooden creations on stilts, clinging to the top of the dunes. At Praia da Comporta, Comporta Café and Restaurante Ilha do Arroz stand guard. Lunch at Ilha do Arroz, under a cherry-red parasol, is a long, laid-back affair, starting at two or three o'clock and kicking off with an iced jug of white sangria, fizzing and bright with espumante and sweet strawberries. Local cheeses are followed by calamari, tomato-and-sweet-onion salad, clams in garlicky parsley and white wine, steaming pots of coriander-scented rice (predictably, there is a lot of rice on the menu) to mop up cataplana stews.
In the town of Comporta, ALMO café is a must-visit. A brunch favourite, but with a wonderfully unusual menu including freshly-baked choux dough filled with duck, local cheese and orange gel, wonderfully moreish caldo verde (green kale) soup and some of the best octopus you’ll find in Portugal, it’s a real treat. For dinner, Cavalariça is much-loved by visitors, with good reason. The menu uses local produce as much as possible, with everything from sauces to syrups made from scratch by the chefs. The flavoursome steak tartare, smoked carrots with roasted almond cream and chicken with fermented red pepper paste and lemon shouldn’t be missed.
If you’re looking for very traditional Alentejo cuisine (which you should be, it’s delicious) then book into Gomes, where pork cheeks are served alongside migas – a classic dish, almost bread pudding-like, and always delicious. Ask for recommendations on wine options; it’s a sin to visit Comporta and not indulge in some locally-produced Alentejo wines.
The best beaches in Comporta
Days here are unhurried. It's an easy, breezy existence. The focus is the beach. And what a beach: 12 km of uninterrupted sand the colour of a pastel de nata, a deep, mellow yellow, fine and powdery as icing sugar that includes Praia da Comporta, Praia da Torre, Praia do Carvalhal and Praia do Pego.
All stretches of sand are similar, with their own charming beachside restaurants. Praia do Pego has the funkiest lunchtime pitstop, Sal, with a cool bar and an even cooler boutique. At Carvalhal beach, there's the unassuming O Dinis Bar do Pescadores (+351 967 977 193). Owned by a fisherman, it's the best spot for catch-of-the-day, grilled, with a squeeze of lemon. The fish here (especially the sea bass), not just in these restaurants but here in Portugal, is outrageously good - something to do with the chilly depths of the Atlantic. It can be a little choppy, but you can see why surfers, windsurfers and kitesurfers flock here at the beginning and end of the season.
In the afternoon kids gather at Gervásio in Brejos, a café with a football table that is the social hub for anyone under 16. Grown-ups crash out for a siesta. Or dip into one of the boutiques on Comporta's Largo de São Jão such as Loja do Museu do Arroz, Lavanda and Coté Sud for Lenny bikinis, beach tunics and Madeline Weinrib ikat cushions. But when dusk is imminent, everyone dashes home. This is the witching hour, when the mosquitos come out. For 30 minutes either side of sunset, they rise from the paddy fields in a humming cloud. But if this sounds like a dealbreaker, it isn't. All the houses have insect screens and are stocked with huge vats of citronella.
Later at night, there's a better kind of buzz, and phenomenal seafood, at Dona Bia or in Comporta village at Museu do Arroz, sister restaurant to the one on the beach, owned by Isabel and Tó Zé Carvalho. These two are Comporta old hands. Some even say that Isabelinha, as she's known, kicked off the scene here 20 years ago, bringing down movers and shakers from Lisbon for the weekend. The restaurant stays open late, as late as she deems fit. When Mario Testino and Patrick Cox were here, it stayed open all night.
This feature first appeared in Condé Nast Traveller July 2013.