Churrascaria Brasa Viva — Restaurant in São Vicente

Here is the thing about a real Portuguese experience - Portuguese people do not need beautiful servets, fancy cutlery or luxury hand soap and cream, or a great plates to serve their food. Of course that is not to say they they do not appreciate or use those things too understand the way that all those details add to the overall expirence. However, where you have a truly organic meat (sourced from mainland of Portugal and if you know a thing or two about Portugal, you know they have very strict standards on growing your castle, no steroids, growth hormones or other chemical popularly used elsewhere) and a tested and tried method of preparing it, all one really need is the simplicity the surroundings so the taste of the food comes forward. The meat seasoned only with garlic, bay leafs (and you can see it hanging around in the restaurant) and salt; yes no pepper! It's a family run busines and all information following is from the manager of the restaurant: on week day they use 12-40 chickens and 6-20 whole serlion steaks, on weekends (particular Sundays) they use 50-70 chickens and about 12-40 whole serlion steaks between 12 midday to early evening. There is queue outside with people hopefully waiting, they do not serve deserts and sometimes even after meal coffees (a staple in Portuguese culture) so they can allow the waiting customers to come in. So needless to say - the grill meat is exceptional and a must if you in Madeira. Yes! The locals come here from Funchal which is about 30 minutes drive for this expirence. The menu is all grilled meats (no option for vegetarian folks) as it is truly grilled- meat serving restaurant. Also, no fish. Adding to all this is the fact that it is family run business, with the owner the father is the family, the manager is son-in-law, with women of the family in the grill and in the kitchen. The food is served in a simple way with no seasoning or dressing on salad and you have all you have to do is add salt, oil and vinegar and you in for a treat for a amazing food and your taste buds will will be stimulated. Did I mention that you feel such pleasure that really you do not desert ? I would truly recommend this place to visit...

If I could give more stars to this place, I would give them all. It's a gem of a place!

I can say it's one of the best bbq grill that we ever had in our life. The meat was so fresh it was melting in our mouth, cooked and spiced to perfection. It really rised the stakes for us!

Even the side dishes that we had, baked potatoes and salad, were excellent and very tasty.

The place doesn't look amazing but don't let that fool you, I promise the food is more than worth it! There were a lot of locals dining there so that was a good sign for us.

The only bad thing about our experience was that, after we ate here, we couldn't find better bbq type of meat anywhere that good, so we suffered, comparing everything with the amazing meat that we had in this restaurant.

Thank you for the amazing experience...

From the moment we arrived, we were kindly greeted and asked to sit wherever we want. The lady serving us was very attentive and made us feel comfortable.

The food was amazing and typical from Madeira. We had espetada (cow meat on a stick), mixed grill (chicken, sausage, pork stripes) salad, milho frito (like blended fried corn) and chips (or as the American say: fries). All meat was very tender and tasty, seasoned perfectly.

What surprised me about this place was its simplicity and how inexpensive it was, I've been coming to the island for 25 years, and I'm surprised I never came across this place in the last 5 years of visiting! It has definitely become a favourite to me and I will be...