Serra e Mar — Restaurant in Santana

We love this place! We went there during the lunch break of an organised tour and didn't opt for the place the guide was 'selling' for a pre-order. Instead, we checked maps and found this gem. When we arrived the place was almost packed with locals and members of the local police force were enjoying a coffee at the bar. We received a warm welcome and were lucky enough there was a table left. The suggestion of the day was a steak of fresh (catch of the day/night) tuna and we went all in for that and started with the Madeiran garlic bread. The tuna was fantastic and accompanied by a diversity (and quantity) of local preparations of boiled potatoes, heavenly polenta, beautifuly prepared string beans and great tasting (local) rice, the latter of which I'm not a fan unless cooked like this. There was so much food on the plate and everything was tasting so good, it was difficult to decide what not to eat. Though we had been looking for a more traditional cuisine for over a week in various places in and around the capital, this was the kind of encounter we were looking for. For us this is the highlight...

Top top top! Such warm and welcoming service for a couple of tourists like us. Not something one finds too often on an island overrun with tourists. We were in the village as part of a bus tour, and the driver had recommended a different restaurant (with much insistence that no better or cheap option existed... Ya sure). We decided to google something which looked a little less catering to tourists and was well reviewed.

It has the feel of a family run operation, in the best way. Many nice home made desserts available along with the excellent mains. We were so full after the mains and a side of garlic bread we took our dessert to go. The garlic bread is a must. The skewed beef was perfectly cooked to the requested medium finish. The dagger fish with banana and passion fruit sauce was also excellent.

The house red and white were also good value.

Thanks for the...

Service was excellent. Our server was very quick, entertaining, informative and his English was excellent. The food was very good we had appetizers, a vegetable soup and the limpets(lapas) The main a shared full order of chicken cubed with fries(picado de frango), the chicken gravy was very tasty and the fries were homemade from the restaurant's own farm's potatoes (possibly some of the best I have ever had). The dessert we had was a chocolate cake tasty not too sweet and had a rich chocolate flavour, the passion fruit mousse was awesome the mousse was very thick and the flavour of the passion fruit was sweet and not over powering. Price was 46 euros with drinks fairly...