Why go
Look past a single signature dish. Espada with banana brings fish and fruit together, while espetada pairs beef grilled on a skewer with bolo do caco bread. Milho frito and sugarcane-sweetened bolo de mel show two more sides of the island's cooking.
The full story
The Atlantic supplies much of Madeira's fish cookery. One distinctive pairing is espada, black scabbardfish, served with banana. Meat has its own familiar centrepiece: espetada, beef seasoned with garlic, salt and bay leaf and grilled on a skewer. Bolo do caco, the island's round bread, commonly comes alongside it. Milho frito is made from cooked maize that is fried, giving a different sort of accompaniment. For something sweet, bolo de mel draws its rich flavour from mel de cana, a syrup made from sugarcane. The cake is traditionally broken into pieces rather than sliced. Malasadas, a fried pastry associated with Madeira, also travelled with emigrants to Hawaii; on the island they are linked especially with Carnival. These dishes make a more useful introduction than a long menu of fish species: try one seafood dish, one grilled dish and one sugarcane-based sweet to see how coast, farming and migration meet at the table.