The Dining Room is Quinta da Casa Branca’s most recent proposal for a quiet and intimate dinner, almost as if you were at home with your family.
A place with a warm and cosy environment, it brings to mind the scenery of some such period film set in an English country house. This is not the product of chance though, as The Dining Room restaurant is actually in the dining room of a house that belonged to the owners of Quinta da Casa Branca. Their ancestors were a family of merchants and Madeira wine producers who settled on the island in the 18th century.
The hotel decided to reopen the main house, a 20th century building where besides a set of suites, they installed their new main restaurant.
The décor is in harmony with the house’s classic style. The Dining Room has a main room and a smaller studio and enables visitors to enjoy their meals alfresco, taking full advantage of Madeira’s mild weather. In spite of the estate being in an urban area of Funchal, there is not a sound to be heard. In an estate that has more than 6.6 thousand acres of banana tree plantations not to mention their beautiful gardens, there is only tranquillity to be enjoyed.
The challenge of deciding on the restaurant’s course was left in the hands of Madeiran chef Carlos Magno, one of the new wave of Madeiran cuisine’s key figures trying to promote products from the island. He is a part of a group of chefs who have been encouraging and promoting local production to ensure that more and more products can be found locally and who, over recent years, have come to confer a new identity to restaurants on the island.
His cuisine derives inspiration from the Mediterranean but Carlos Magno claims that he does ‘everything he can to work with regional products’. He is committed to fresh products like the Madeira’s fish and vegetables. But above all, he seeks a creative cuisine: ‘that’s how I like to work’, he remarks.
Balancing such products of international fame as lamb, Blank Angu fillet or crab with regional products, the chef arrives at a menu with some winning dishes: Brown Crab and Prawn Salad with Avocado; Smoked Mackerel with Vegetable Pickles and Cider in a Yellow Pepper Emulsion or even the Green Asparagus Cream Soup with Cottage Cheese. Not to mention the Grilled Black Angus Fillet, Garlic Mousse, Vegetables Sautéed Flavoured with Smoked Sea Salt; the Sautéed Lamb Loin over Couscous Drizzled with an Arabic Coffee Sauce; or the Bass with Dry Tomato Risotto.
In every dish, there is a delicate balance to be found. Always with a dash of what is local and inspiration drawn from beyond the nation’s borders.
Carlos Magnos discloses that one of his next investments will be in the growth of herbs on the estate. Next to the restaurant will blossom an orchard with herbs ‘such as curry plant, tarragon, purple ruffles basil, lemon basil, sage or mustard’.
The Dining Room does not open just for dinner and their menu will not limit itself to the most sought after dishes; it will try to reflect the different seasons of the year. Entrees will always be paired with a glass of good wine.
Every other dish will have a specific wine associated with it in the form of a suggestion in a predominantly Portuguese wine list. Most of the wines on offer can be ordered by the glass, an option which allows guests to build their own tasting menu, by combining dishes with different wines.
The dishes conceived by Carlos Magno seems as though it were actually meant to be enjoyed in the cosiness of a dining room or in the relaxed atmosphere of a garden. It brings to mind homemade food, served in a family house, of course.
