Restaurante A Poita — Restaurant in Ponta do Sol

While recommended by our two separate hosts during a two week's vacation, this was an utter and total let down on our first day on Madeira.

After our arrival we were ignored for ten minutes despite my efforts of addressing some of the staff in Portuguese. We should have left at that moment, but as we were hungry and tired from our long travel day we decided to pursue our attempt for a decent lunch. Most customers had finished their lunch by that time and were leaving.

Finally, we were offered a table after which it took another ten minutes to bring the menu. Taking our order took 15 minutes. By then there were only three tables taken.

Then began the 45 minutes wait for two fish dishes (they only served three dishes from the entire list on the menu). Meanwhile, they omitted to bring some of our drinks, as well as the mayonaise for our french fries when the food finally arrived. We mentioned it, but to no avail.

Having said enough about the negligance and unfriendliness of the staff, let's talk about the food. In short: it did not match the praise it receives in other reviews below.

The french fries were sticky and soft, the salad was nothing but a few slices of tomato and cucumber. And as for the fish itself, the scabbard (espada) was breaded too heavily and then over-coocked. So much for Madeira's black gold. The seafood pasta was a melee of various shalefish with no distinct flavour, apart from the tomato-ish sauce.

Conclusion: We were extremely disappointed by the (lack of) quality of the food and the way we were treated by the staff.

I don't mean to bad-mouth the restaurant in an unfounded manner, hence my elaborate account of our experience. I prefer to give positive reviews to restaurants, as I did to other restaurants on Madeira. Alas, there was nothing to be optimistic about....

Probably the worst "restaurant" in which I've been. Not in madeira but in my life. I have to be honest, the shirmps were good. Out of their menu list (about 10 fishes) only 3 were available. We chose bodiao. The fishes arrived and mine was half skin, head and maybe 20% of the fish was edible fillet (half of the fish was missing with just the skin and bones present). The other one was almost a whole one. We start to eat and discovered the fish was completely raw. Not just a bit, the middle part was pink and wet like straight from the ocean. We send it back to have it cooked but only half returned. (maybe it falled on the grill, hard to tell). Now I'm really scared for anisaki risk and my personal health. Do yourself a favor and not go to this place. It's many things but I don't feel I can call it a restaurant. Now the bill part. It seems we had almost a kg of fish each. (0.9kg). I'm not sure I managed to eat 100 grams. (without head, bones and skin). The other was probably half kg before they recooked it and...

We were advised by a local to try this restaurant for its fresh fish. I must be honest, the fish was good, but almost everything else was unfortunately not. To start, the waitress didn’t have much experience and didn’t seem to care much about our comfort or satisfaction. She brought us completely warm white wine (we ordered simple table wine). When we went back to her to inform her about it, she just replied that she didn’t have any cold wine. She again did not care.. How can this happen in a fish restaurant? The fries felt reheated, as they were soggy and also tasted bitter from old oil. And not to forget, the beer we started with was flat. The location is nice and the place has potential but unfortunately we did not see it...