Madeira Island Restaurants

One of the best place in Madeira for espetadas (beef roasted on the spit). You cannot miss it. It’s a big place, sometimes noisy, full of people (not only tourists) but really picturesque. Waiters (only men. Someone can explain me why in a lot of Portuguese restaurant you cannot see a waitress?) are very friendly and the meat (with bone or without, both delicious), such such fried “milo”, salads, French fries (they assured not to be frozen) and desserts are terrific. We were there 2 times and we had a great dinner.

Favorite Dish: Beef Espetadas and fried "milo".

fish restarant near the new shopping centre at the end of this strip (on the way out of funchal), and down by the water where you can get 5 different types of fish for 14 euro. It's amazingly cheap and really tasty and the restaurant is packed out every night by locals and tourists alike. You may need to book for the next day or make sure you get down early to a secure a booking for that night.

apart from this restaurant, behind the hotels on the main hotel strip (i.e. savoy hotel etc) there are a number of really lovely, trendy restaurants that serve excellent food, and not the tourist fare that some restaurants in the more obvious tourist areas sell.

Favorite Dish: you can get 5 different types of fish for 14 euro!

This is not typical from Madeira, but it's worth a note. Empanada is a roll to snack. It's from Spanish speaking South America, namely Venezuela.
It happens that oil rich Venezuela became a quite rich country during the first oil price hikes in the 1970's. Many Madeirans emigrated to there.
In the 1980's, the oil prices decreased. Venezuela became poorer. Some of the emigrants (as well as some Venezuelans) moved back to Madeira.

As a consequence, ties between Madeira and this South-American country remained (a simmilar story happens with South Africa).
They brought some costumes with them, including this snack.

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Favorite Dish: As mentioned bananas are the current most important tropical crop of Madeira.

Madeiran bananas are not quite like the Central American ones that we usually find in a supermarket. The Madeiran sort is smaller, thicker and taste like honey (I'm not lying).

They can be eaten when the peel is still green as the stuff inside is already sweet.

Bolo do Caco is a large and round bread loaf.

It's usually eaten with garlic butter in, but sandwiches of anything (steaks, ham, cheese) can be done.

It's sold in snack bars as well as in food kiosks in Madeira.

It's good for a quick and cheap meal. You'll feel full after eating this large sandwich.

Scabbard is a long and thin fish from the deep ocean. If you look at her head in the fish market, she looks really scary with her sharp teeth and creepy look. She seems to be a voracious predator, the terror of all the little creatures of the deep.
It's very abundant on the Portuguese waters of the Atlantic.
By the mainland of Portugal, the subspecies of scabbard has a normal silver fish skin, perhaps because the seabed around continental Portugal is sandy. Around Madeira the local subspecies is black, maybe because of the black volcanic seabed around the island, enabling the fish to hunt more effectively without being noticed.

The Portuguese name for this fish, "peixe espada", may cause error when translating it to English. Peixe espada litterally means "sword fish". However, it's not the English language swordfish. There's a false friend here. The Portuguese for swordfish is "espadarte", another fish species that is also caught in Madeira"
Scabbard in Madeira is often simply called "espada" (sword).

Favorite Dish: This is the most important fish eaten in Madeira. Her flesh, contrasting with her scary black skin, is white and really tasty. Try it grilled or fried and you won't regret.

I had two satisfying meals here in this small restaurant in Funchal Old Town. It's neat and very clean with excellent service and very well presented tasty food and a relaxed atmosphere. A good place to give your feet a rest for an hour or so whilst enjoying a good pizza or Lasagne. The salads are crisp and fresh and the bruschettas are delicious! and why not relax further with a jug of sangria or better still a good measure of strong poncha!

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We couldn't leave Madeira without tasting the famous drinks - Poncha and Nikita. Our friends did it in Serra d'Agua and we stopped in "A poncha da Fátima" in Santo António da Serra. Poncha is too strong (dangerous for a driver), Nikita was cool.