Restaurants in Caniço

The Reis Magos seafront

Praia dos Reis Magos is a small pebble-and-shingle beach at the bottom of a steep road below Caniço de Baixo, with a lifeguard in season, a slipway used by local fishermen and a short promenade. It is the single best reason to eat down here: the restaurant and bar sit metres from the water, and lunch is grilled fish, limpets in garlic butter, octopus salad and bolo do caco, eaten a few steps from the beach. Come before 12:30 or after 14:30 in July and August, the terrace fills and there is no queuing system beyond patience.

The coastal path from the Cristo Rei statue at Garajau arrives here on foot in about 40 minutes if you would rather earn the meal.

Caniço de Baixo and the hotel strip

Caniço de Baixo is the cliff-top resort half of the parish, a run of hotels and apartment blocks above the Garajau marine reserve, Madeira's oldest protected stretch of sea and the island's best shore diving. The restaurants here are built for that crowd: all-day kitchens, English spoken, prices still well below Funchal. Munchies is our overall #1 pick for the parish, open 09:00 for breakfast through to late dinner and reliably good at any of them, while Nova Onda handles the cheap petiscos end, Fuga does a smarter modern Madeiran-Mediterranean menu with cocktails, and Sushi Point and Namaste India cover sushi and Indian when you have had enough grilled fish. The Mini Eco Container Bar nearby pours low-waste cocktails made with local fruit. Along the residential streets, Sabores da Andreia is the tasca locals fill for espetada and limpets (Monday lunch only, then Tuesday to Saturday until 23:00), and Snack Bar Maré is the local oddity, a family-run room where borscht and Eastern European stews share the menu with Madeiran staples, with live music several nights a week. It is a 5-minute drive or a 20-minute downhill walk from Caniço town, and the hotels run shuttles to the beach lifts.

Caniço town: where locals eat

The town above, at the top of Estrada do Ponte de Oliveira, is unglamorous and that is the point. In the streets around the church you get tascas serving what Madeiran families actually eat at lunch: espetada off the laurel skewer, lapas grelhadas, black scabbard with banana, milho frito, and a jug of house wine for a few euros. Taberna Do Chef Tério's runs a generous Madeiran grill that is comfortably the best-value sit-down meal on the south-east coast.

Getting there, parking and timings

Caniço is 9 km east of Funchal, 15 minutes on the VR1, or about 30 minutes on the 555 and 110 buses from the Funchal seafront, see the bus guide for live timetables. Parking is free and easy in the town; Caniço de Baixo and the road down to Reis Magos are tight from June to September, so go early or park up top and walk down. Most kitchens serve lunch 12:00–15:00 and dinner 19:00–22:30, and several of the town tascas close on Sunday or Saturday, check the individual listing before you drive over.