Restaurante Vila do Peixe — Restaurant in Câmara de Lobos

Food, view, ambiance all excellent. We split a Scorpion fish selected from the fish counter, which was perfectly grilled and came with three taster sauces freshly prepared. We chose a market salad to accompany it, and had a starter of some garlic bread. My partner chose a mango mousse to finish which was too sweet for me, but it was a mango mousse, so it should be sweet:-) All diners around us seemed to be enjoying their dishes as much as we did. It isn’t cheap but it is good value. I was assisted choosing a wine which was a Madeira produced dry rosé and a great accompaniment. Service was great and I marked it down one star because with the bill we were given a card telling us that a free minibus was available to run back to Funcal, and I even cash tipped a little higher because of this, but when we went out and asked the driver, who was sat in the minibus, he first suggested we hadn’t dined there, which took my partner 5 minutes to disprove by taking him back to our table where the bill still was. He then went through to the, I assume, manager who told her it was necessary to pre-book to get a lift. It would be good to make that very clear when the card is handed out. Our apartment was only 10 minutes drive away - about the time taken to tell us a lift wasn’t available to us, during which time the minibus remained parked up. If you go, ask first about the minibus as it was a challenge to get back to Funchal area, the nearest bus stop being a healthy walk along the coast and no taxis...

Why would this particular restaurant of all on Madeira would get a Michelin Bib Gourmand is a complete mystery to me.

Neither food nor service was particularly good. It was ok. The only thing that you can’t beat here is the fantastic view over the village and ocean.

We were a group 5 sommeliers coming for lunch. The restaurant was empty and still they seemed not particularly happy with walk-ins. We didn’t have much time, cause we had a visit scheduled at Henriques&Henriques. And we always had to call to be attended several times before someone finally decided to react, and that several times. Seemed they were much interested in reorganising wine fridges than in attending. It was annoying cause it was right by our table.

I had amêijoas à bulhão pato (clams, 17,50€), which were the biggest I ever had in Portugal and can’t say this big size benefits the taste - they were rubbery and had some sand grains and lacked flavour (garlic & herbs).

I also ordered percebes (goose barnacles, 18€) for my colleagues to try and for some mysterious reason they decided to boil them without even asking (on continental Portugal they are always served like oysters - raw and fresh). It was a disaster, didn’t like it.

And didn’t quite have the wines that were on the list, so I had to get up to see what they physically had in the wine...

The good: the fish was very good and super fresh, the portions of the side dishes(accompaniments) were very generous . The restaurant is very nice and the terrace has a nice view.

The bad: you have to chase the waiters in order to get to your table, of course everyone was busy so we have to wait 5-10 min to find someone willing to assign us a table (we had a reservation). All the side dishes (or accompaniments) were average at best, you can find better rice or potatoes in any other restaurant, the only ok one was the "fried maize", that is actually corn flour fried, not the actual corn(or maize)

The ugly: they forgot two dishes of our table of 6, so two people were waiting for food that never came, when we asked what happened... They simply told us that they forgot about it .. not even a courtesy Coffee was offered. The missing dishes were two meat dishes, and when they finally arrived, was poorly cooked, looked like a dish made by a street cafeteria, of course overpriced. Also, the restaurant offer us a some sort o mix of different fish, what a mistake, the portions were Small so for 3 people was better and cheaper to order 3 different dishes that the overpriced and small mix.

Conclusion: I will...