Michel Restaurant — Restaurant in Ponta Delgada

We happen to see this place while driving to another restaurant once we got to Ponta Delgada. We were saving it until the last few days here, and we're so glad we did. We came here with our 1 year old so this is our experience.

Location: If you don't know about this place or blink while driving by you'd miss it. It's not in the main area but more on the outskirts. There was parking on the street curb but not much otherwise.

Atmosphere/Restaurant: This restaurant is small and so gorgeous! The inside feels high-end and cozy all at the same time. It is small with enough space for maybe 25+ people. The place really makes you want to stay and eat for a long time.

Pricing: The prices are pretty good and similar to most restaurants in and around Ponta Delgada.

Food: To start we did the cheese platter, bread and butter. Our mains we ordered the Tuna sesame crust and the Pork belly + a chicken and rice for our little one. Dessert we got the Panna cotta and the apple crumble. This place brings out your senses and feels like you're eating at a 5 star high end restaurant. The plating of each dish matched the taste, gorgeous and delicious. Even the kids meal was plated. The food (from app to dessert) was amazing, we couldn't say more great things. I already went to do this meal all over again. The Panna cotta chef's kiss, actually all of it was delicious.

Service: We didn't make a reservation, but I would recommend it especially during high season. The service was top-notch and something I can't praise enough. The servers were welcoming, helpful, accommodating and made the whole experience just so easy. It's no secret that going out to eat with kids isn't an easy thing — but the staff made us feel so calm. We didn't have to wait for a server to come to us. They came after we settled into our seats, and the food arrived in an appropriate time.

Highly recommend this location for locals and tourists — but 100% make a...

I liked the decor and ambiance of the resto - it was simple yet classy, service was good; the entire resto was reserved (we also made a reservation beforehand). Thankfully this resto has online resos available which unfortunately is not something that the Azores has readily available. The tuna was very good and it was cooked perfectly rare. There are a lot of sesame seeds and a light pesto as a garnish. I did not care for the pesto. There was mashed yam and spinach as a side and it tasted like they were infused with butter! The tuna could be further elevated with another light “dressing” or sauce, but it was already very good. My partner had the pork belly which was also recommended by our server. The vegetables that came with it are seasoned surprisingly well (almost like some sort of alfredo sauce?) and it was refreshing to taste vegetables in the Azores, AND to taste veggies that arent just plain or soaked in butter/oil. The pork belly was tender, although it was sorely lacking a sauce and seasoning (there is a small amount of orange sauce which had a forgettable flavour, but imo it did not compliment the pork that well). We have had pork a few times across the islands and this place makes it the most tender, although in my opinion it is still a little dry. The skin of the pork was soft - im not sure whether that is how it is usually made here, but a little crispness to the skin would have been a cheery on top. I had the apple alcoholic drink in the pic and i really appreciated that they went the extra effort to garnish the beverage witb a few slices of...

Reservations are a must! Myself and three others tried to eat here for lunch last week but got turned away. This was disappointing, but we understood and booked in for dinner a few days later. Having now eaten at Michel’s I can confirm that the food is wonderful. However, because other reviews described this restaurant as having an “intimate” atmosphere we’d been expecting a peaceful dining experience. What we got though was a small room packed with close to 40 people all seated close together particularly in the middle row where we were placed. You honestly couldn’t even re-adjust your chair without bumping into the diner sitting behind you. Unfortunately this made quiet conversation impossible even with the person across from you. Our reservation was also for 7:00pm but we didn’t leave the restaurant until 10:00pm. It took three hours to get our appetizers, main courses and desserts. This was horrendously boring since we couldn’t even talk with each other easily to pass the time. I recognize that everything was made fresh and that it was busy from the moment the restaurant opened. But I feel that our primary complaints could have been solved by either staggering reservation times better or at least having additional staff on hand to help with flow. The wait staff that were working were lovely and did apologize...