Cantinho dos Amigos — Restaurant in Funchal

Hands down one of the worst dining experiences I've ever had. Let me just list everything:

Waited patiently for 5 minutes at the door of an almost empty restaurant while the owner ignored us.

Asked for tap water and were brought a bottled water. (we didn't mention it). Also brought warm garlic bread that we hadn't ordered either. No other restaurant we went to during our stay did this.

Asked what was in the mixed salad and owner practically yelled "Salad! tomato, lettuce... Salad!" When the salad arrived (lettuce, tomato, grated beets and carrots, onions dry as a bone with zero dressing) I took the onions off and was again yelled at "Why didn't you ASK for no onion?!" (Um, sir, I had no idea there were onions because you refused to tell us!)

My friend ordered Black Scabbardfish with banana because we had seen it on every menu in Funchal and she wanted to try something different. The owner scoffed at her - made a derisive noise and rolled his eyes. When she asked if it was any good or not he replied "How should I know? I've never eaten that!" as if it was something only an idiot would try. But it's ON HIS MENU!

When the mains came out, he brought two servings of fish with garlic sauce (which I had ordered). As we were noticing that my friend had the wrong meal he came back and snatched her dish away leaving me with my fish and her without food. He didn't think to take mine back to keep warm at all.

The food itself was without a doubt one of the most disgusting meals I've ever been served anywhere in my life. And I'm 53 and have eaten from dives and sketchy street vendors. I was so utterly shocked by the appearance (just a messy pile that didn't resemble a fish in any way, shape, or form with some sad boiled to death potatoes) that it didn't occur to me to take photos which I normally do. I wish I had now. Worse still was the taste. Absolutely disgusting. Dry on the outside and undercooked inside. And loads of bones. I had two bites and couldn't eat it.

My friend's food finally came and it was similar but with a half cooked banana sitting on it. Nothing like the dishes we had seen at other restaurants during our stay.

We decided to call it a night and rather than say anything about it we just asked for bill. Unsurprisingly, he was upset about this, too.

The owner stood at the computer punching his fingers into it and looking annoyed and confused (this time with the technology and not us) for a good 5 minutes. I decided to just total up our bill using the menu. My total came to €41.50 but our bill came to €52. So I looked over it and saw we were charged for the bread we had not ordered. This has happened to me before in other European counties so not a big deal. But that didn't account for the €10 difference. I noticed that the prices of certain dishes weren't the same as stated on the menu. I (stupidly) mentioned this to him and you won't be surprised to hear that he started yelling at me again saying I was wrong and insisting I show him. I started pointing out which items were different but he was still literally yelling at me and I couldn't take it anymore. I turned and walked out and my poor friend was left to deal with him for the last minute. Apparently he was yelling "OH, SO YOU NEVER MADE A MISTAKE? OH, SO I OWE YOU SOME PENNIES?" or something like that.

Anyway, I would strongly recommend staying far, far away from this place if you value your time, sanity,...

I'd give this restaurant 4.5 stars if I could. They had a nice tourist menu for 15.50Eur with soup (veggie), choice of scabbard fish with banana or steak with madeira sauce, coffee, glass of wine/beer, and dessert (cheesecake). The meat was cooked properly and was tender. The shrimp and octopus skewer was also well cooked and flavourful. They gave us a small portion of pesto spaghetti for our kid for 4.50Eur rather than 6Eur which was appreciated. They were also kind enough to give me salad and veggies with the steak rather than one or the other plus fries/potato/rice. The waiter spoke great English and German and I was happy to see some portugese-speaking families eating too. He was very sweet with a baby at the next table. The only real negative was that the cheesecake filling had pieces of very hard gelatin scattered in it - something must have gone wrong when they were making it. Overall it was a very nice meal and worth...

We visited here after realising that other restaurants we likes had similar ratings on TripAdvisor. We liked this one too.

The restaurant is positioned in what looks like an alleyway, but don’t let that put you off, it just adds to the atmosphere.

The staff here were all very friendly and joked around with us. It was very nice to have staff who were so friendly and enjoy what they do.

The food came quickly and was very tasty. There was lots of fish on offer with a few other local dishes too. I ordered one of the fish dishes, but it came with so much vegetables that ended up completely covering the fish.

For dessert we asked the waiter what he suggested. We were told that one of the home made ones was the best one, so we all ordered that. We were not disappointed. It was delicious! You can’t go wrong ordering one of their homemade desserts.

If I had more time in Madeira, I definitely would...