CUISINE

If you combine honey, sugar cane brandy and lemon juice and stir everything together you have poncha, the best known drink on the island after Madeira Wine.

But beef skewers are also well-known. This is beef roasted on a spit, seasoned with salt, garlic and laurel leaf. The secret is in the seasoning, but also in the heat of the coals.

Among the culinary options, don’t forget to try bolo do caco, a very special type of bread, or milho frito (corn bread cut into cubes and fried), the famous black scabbard-fish fillets, or tuna steaks, a common fish in Madeira’s waters.

Exotic fruits, including an immense variety of passion fruit, banana, custard apples and pitanga (a red Brazilian berry) are flavours that the island indelibly stamps on the memory. As for sweets, don't leave the island without having tried the famous honey cake, a cheese cake or the famous Portuguese custard tarts, the ‘pastel de nata’.

The interesting thing about all these recipes is that they seem easy to make outside Madeira, but when you try them elsewhere the taste is never the same. Maybe the surroundings also make a difference.

In the restaurants of PortoBay Hotels & Resorts, you can enjoy traditional Madeiran flavours.