It is impressive, made totally of wood and is clearly visible to people coming ashore on the Ilha Deserta. From the outset, voices were raised criticising the building of a "hotel" in the middle of the Ria Formosa Natural Park, but in fact it is just a restaurant. The Ilha Deserta, located off the coast at Faro, was an almost unreachable paradise until the end of the 1980s when José Vargas started to organise tourist visits by boat to what is regarded as one of the wildest islands in the Algarve.

So that visitors to the island would have somewhere to have a bite to eat, he decided to open a restaurant to act as a support facility for the trip. Quickly the "Estaminé" began to be recognised as the restaurant in the Algarve that you could only get to by boat.

Almost two decades later, the businessman thought it was time to close the old restaurant to make way for a new one, just a few metres away, but bigger and with better conditions and facilities.

Aware of the rumours that are widespread about a new three-storey hotel being built on the Ilha Deserta, José Vargas shrugs his shoulders and says that the issue had even been raised for discussion at the Faro Municipal Assembly.

He said that people were used to seeing these areas being occupied by less elegant structures and then they are surprised to see something that had been well thought out and carefully built. He added that the investment was worth about 600,000 euros.

The president of Faro Council confirmed to the Lusa agency that the building is “legal” and that the construction process respected all the necessary requirements for classified areas.

According to a source at the Ria Formosa Natural Park, the licence is the responsibility of the IPTM, the Ports and Maritime Transport Institute. In this case, the stipulation of the POOC, the Plan for Regulating the Coastal Strip between Vilamoura and Vila Real de Santo António, the regulation that José Vargas followed, was not applicable.

The same source told the Algarve Observer that they thought it should not be very different from other beach support facilities in the POOC, as far as the type of materials, elevation and functional areas were concerned.

The restaurant, with room for 140 people, is made totally of wood and is seated on stilts to allow the sand to move around – which is obligatory according to the park regulations – and it is self-sufficient in terms of energy.

In addition to being equipped with solar panels, the water that is used in the kitchen and toilets will be drawn from the phreatic sheets under the island and then subjected to desalination.

For the new restaurant to start operating, which should occur in August, although the opening was scheduled for 1st June, the old one has to be dismantled as the process is one of substitution.

Isabel Vicente, wife of the businessman explained that there could only be one restaurant on the island and that they could not demolish anything to avoid interfering with the ecosystem: the building will be dismantled and the site reorganised.

In addition to the restaurant, the two run the concession for water transport to the Ilha Deserta, the beach facilities and shaded areas and the nature circuit which takes tourist and bird enthusiasts for trips in the Ria Formosa.

Isabel said that they had done everything themselves, and that even the walkways were the result of private investment, even though everything was for the benefit of the public.

One of the advantages of the new facility is that it can be open all year round and not just in the summer, as the roofs can be closed and the structure is surrounded by large glass windows.

The Ilha Deserta is 11 kilometres long and is one of the five barrier islands in the Ria Formosa, in addition to the islands of Culatra (where there are two other residential centres: Farol and Hangares), Armona, Tavira and Cabanas.

The Ria Formosa is a lagoon which is 60 kilometres long and stretches from Manta Rota (close to the border with Spain) to Praia do Garrão (near Almancil), and contains two peninsulas Cacela Velha and Ancão (where Faro Beach is located) in addition to the five islands.

source: Algarve Observer