Dona Joana Rabo-de-Peixe — Restaurant in Funchal

We came for dinner on our first night in Madeira. I ordered espetada, and the waiter asked how I would like it cooked. I said rare to medium rare. He asked, well which? I said closer to medium rare. He gave me a look and said "In Germany there are six levels of rare." I said great, but are in Madeira not Germany. I told him I wanted it warm and red in the middle. He proceeded to make a big deal about me being unclear and tried to "educate" me on what rare and medium rare mean. He was quite arrogant and tried to make me look stupid. He said he would request it more rare, that way I could send it back for more cooking if I wasn't happy with it. At that point I just wanted to end the conversation and said fine. Even the ladies at the table next to me had overheard the whole exchange and understood what I wanted and were repeating out loud what I had said. When he left the table, I had tears in my eyes I felt so humiliated.

When he returned to the table with our appetizer, he apologized "if I seemed rude earlier," explaining that he just wanted me to be happy with my meal -- but he kept apologizing to my brother-in-law instead of to me! How misogynistic! I was the one he was rude to; his apology should have been directed to me.

When the food was ready a different waiter delivered it. The meat was medium well, not red or pink at all in the center. I could not believe after such a big fuss he made about the meat being exactly right, it came out totally wrong and overcooked. I just ate it because I don't like sending food back anyway and didn't want him to make another big scene. Honestly how my meat was cooked was not nearly as important to me as how I was treated. Further, I am a Madeiran-American and the daughter of a butcher. I didn't need an education on espetada or on cooking meat. In any case, if he wanted clarification he certainly could have been much more polite about asking for it. I won't ever return there after...

I visited this restaurent whilst staying in Funchal. The waiter who greeted me was helpful and friendly enough, but that was quite literally the only decent thing about the whole experience. From the seating area, you can see into the kitchen area, and I was less than impressed at what I saw. One lady was wiping sweat of her face with her hands then straight away continuing to carry on with food preparation without washing her hands. At one point, all the kitchen staffing were hugging one another then carrying on working-really there did not look to be much in the way of hygiene. On several occasions one of the men could be seen coughing without even putting his hand to his mouth whilst preparing food. One my food arrived ( Espetada ), it was totally underwhelming. There was not a hint of the seasoning that it should have-it was just normal steak.

In addition, it's my understanding that when not eating/drinking in a restaurent, masks must be worn in Madeira. Certainly, this is what I've seen in all other restaurents and shops...Not a single member of staff wore one here though. I nearly mentioned all of the above to the member of staff who came to take payment, but decided against it, as I was just keen to get out.

I hate leaving negative reviews, but this is based upon a very bad first...

We had mixed emotions sitting down here; we were in a rush and quickly seeing the top reviews, we felt it safe to sit. However, after seeing the last few reviews, we were wondering if we made a bad choice or not. I will break it all down:

Pros: we took the Black Scabbard Fish with Banana and Passion Fruit, and the Fillet Steak with mushrooms. Both plates were cooked well and were actually quite tasty.

Cons: the tables mats were a mess, full of stains the menus were disgusting to the touch, had so much spillage of god knows what on them the side of veggies were very clearly from a frozen packet, we expect far better than that the staff is a little too pushy with trying to get you to order 'the next thing'

Having said all that, the food in itself was good, but the overall package left much...