Restaurante O Recante — Restaurant in Machico

Dinner would have been a perfect experience if the waiter, Tiago, hadn't ruined it. The food is delicious. The choices are limited, but the cooking is perfect, the dishes are well-crafted. A great effort at presentation. I would have been happy to do without Tiago's fingers in my plate to explain what was in it. His insistence on making us take a bottle of wine (even though we specified that we were driving) was tiresome. His way of constantly watching you, of jumping on you as soon as you put down your fork, stressed me out even though everything was reunited for a nice and relaxed moment. The moments when he was yelling at his colleague in front of everybody : it's unprofessional in my opinion. we hesitated to have dessert but we gave in. And it was a good thing we did, because the sage ice cream with roasted apricot is divine, and the chocolate mousse excellent. In short, a mixed experience. If I would definitely come back for the food, I would ask myself the question given...

We ate here twice in our 5 night stay in Canical. Different to other restaurants, there was fish, seafood, steak and chicken on offer. The first night we had 2 poncha, a bottle of white wine, smoked salmon salad (which had peppers, radish & pomegranate), and vegetable soup, followed by the seafood rice, which was huge - we could only eat just over half between us. Came to 47 euro. Second night we restrained, well tried... 2 Poncha, a bottle of red, steak with mushroom sauce, chicken with rosemary, Milho fritos, chips and sauteed vegetables (peppers, courgette, mushrooms, onion & possibly tomato), 51 euro. We ate well both nights, came away full, no room for any more. Lovely to see something different on offer from the seafront restaurants, which we also enjoyed. If I was vegetarian, I think I could put something together from the menu here - the vegetable soup was really thick & filling & the vegetables on the second night...

Wow, wow & wow. Not much else to be said.

We had the tuna, octopus, king prawn and this absolutely stunning fig salad.

The tuna had a laurel skewer which added the traditional taste to it, it also came with traditional fried corn which was unbelievable, crunchy on the outside and soft as a cloud inside.

The Lagareiro Octopus was a brilliant gastronomical palate. Not much to be said, HAS to be tasted to be understood!

Cannot emphasise how much I recommend the fig salad, it is an absolute party of flavours which just simply work.

Huge selection of wines also.

And to top it all off, Tiago was absolutely incredible, took time to come over and explain what was included in the dish, the origin of some of the ingredients. Tiago is a pool of knowledge and deserves recognition.

Hats off you Tiago, you’re a star.

If you’re in Madeira and you don’t come to O Recante, you’re missing...