Duna Da Cresmina - Cascais

Well on a really windy day it is not the most comfortable place to have lunch or grab a coffee but you cannot fault this café for their attitude and views. The actual dune has a nice of not always well maintained walkway that also provides a shortcut down to guincho beach. Combine a nice walk with lunch. I usually have a salgada, a wrap and a coffee.

One of the most stunning café locations to be found. I think the site is owned by the Cascais municipality and licenced to the current operators; the people running it sadly fail to realise the potential of the site which is a massive shame. We keep coming back because of the location and I guess the food and coffee are fine enough. The interior of the café has the underwhelming feel of a local municipality building with hospital like easy clean linoleum flooring and strange cardboard walls matched with IKEA accessories on the tables. The staff reliably deliver the usual moody, rushed, grumpy service that is sadly often the norm in this part of the world, succeeding most of the time making customers feel like they are annoying the staff by just being there and making an order. Go figure. My biggest gripe “The Bell” At some point during the various pandemic re opens it was decided to stop table service, adopting instead an utterly stupid coded bell ringing system. Essentially, when you place your order at the counter they tell you to listen out for x number of ‘ tings’ of a metal concierge bell that they may well have borrowed from Manuel at Fawlty Towers. You are told how many rings of the bell to listen out for to indicate when your order is ready for collection from the counter, for example 1 ‘ting’ of the bell when your order is ready, the next customer gets 2 ‘tings’ when their order is ready and so on, the number of rings are almost impossibly deciphered from outside, there can be a lot of customers there so just imagine how hard it is to work out who is ting ing who! The net result involves customers sitting outside having to spend most of their time getting up and down, going in and out, asking if the bell was for them or not. The movement of people up and around and inside of the café is therefore way higher than if there was the usual table service. If you happen to be sitting inside, then you suffer a constant trail of people walking around you trying to establish if their order is ready or not, and constant ‘ting’ ‘ting’ tings’ of the bell followed by more forceful and rapid ‘ting’ ‘ting’ tings’ and audible huffs and puffs from behind the counter as the staff get increasingly disappointed that nobody understands their bell ringing system. What a shambles. If the operators are reading this, please for the sake of good service or for the love of God or for the sake of something, anything, bring back table service (which is you hadn’t realised is allowed by law) and then put on a smile and make this place the warm, friendly and sensibly run place that the location deserves. Cascais municipality please tell me when the licence is up for renewal, this site should be something way, way better than this.

What a cool cozy place! Great view,very friendly service,amazing lemon pie: Next time i need to try the 'Tostas ' Um lugar muito Giro: !

Gorgeous location, excellent food, fair prices, relaxing settings … and not difficult to find a parking — which perhaps might not be the case if they keep getting great reviews :

This must be one of the best Zen spots To be at. Very popular for sunset.!