Taste Funchal: Food, Wine & Cultural Tour

Very good trip with lots of food!! Knowledgeable guide, good company and would highly recommend it to others

Had a great day exploring the city

This is obviously set up to bilk the tourists. A cup of tea and a cake, a sausage sandwich, a plate of fruit and lunch at a not terribly good cafe. Sorry but that's not only not worth the price but to advertise it as 'exquisite' is absurd. A dramatic fail, only faintly rescued by the tour guide's performance. There is sadly nothing here you could not have done yourself at zero cost.

Good food and good overview of Funchal. The food was good and there was a good variety. We had a full lunch on the tour with excellent food.

Mara was a great guide, very accommodating and knowledgeable, we learnt a lot and enjoyed a wide variety of food and drink.

A great experience, well worth the price. The food, drink and guide were excellent. A taste of Nadeira in just a few hours.

Wonderful experience & well worth what we paid. The local guide Grace was excellent. She was very friendly & knowledgeable & gave us a great insight into Madeira……its origins & history, its people, its culture & ,of course, its food & drink. Easy walk around central Funchal with stops at an icecream stall, the fruit, vegetable & flower market, Madeira wine tasting, local wine with cheeses & meats , a cake & biscuit factory, a restaurant & a Poncha bar. We enjoyed all of it in the company of 8 like minded people. Very good. Don’t hesitate to book

Tasting Funchal was quite different from what we expected. We thought we would visit the standard tourist traps which were abundant in the city center but almost non of that! Starting out in a little shop and slowly moving through the city in a small group from all over the world, we got to try sweets with wine, local food (and hearing about why some food is absolutely not local!), ice cream, a diner and drinks afterwards, we were completely satisfied, food- and drinkwise :).

Excellent tour combining both the history of Madeira with local food experiences. Superior food locations. Our guide was welcoming and informative. Highly recommend this tour.

It is a perfect mix of culture and food. I learned a lot about Madeira's history. The food is also great.

Excellent experience and food. We learned about Madeira history while tasting delicious local dishes. Well chosen locations. Highly recommend this tour.

Our tour included shop-based foods such as ice-cream (before they closed), then to a restaurant for a complete multi-course meal. Although the food was all excellent, I would say it was back to front and too much.

Not so much a cultural tour, but lots of opportunities to taste and eat... Lunch very tasty fish, 2 different types of pork, rice, pork mince croquettes, Bola de Caco (bread), choice of red/white/coral beer/water/fizzy juice x 2. So full didn't eat until the next day. Ended on how to make poncha... very strong. Tasty.

A good food tour is well planned, has a narrative, balanced between tastings, walking and explanation of the history, culture and has a mix of famous spots with local secrets. This tour had none of this. The guide rambled, stopped at shop windows, walked painfully slowly. The tour was very un balanced starting with lots of sweets, a fruit platter that was very average. I have been in Funchal for 48 hours and could now give a better tour.

13 People were on tour, seven too many for the cost. Food and wine quality/quantity mediocre for the cost. Little cultural information provided.

You should know that is worth taking. Start your Madeira experience with this. Eugenia is fantastic.

Brilliant tour with Eugenie. Food was excellent, variety great and she added in lots of fascinating facts about Madeira. The pace was lovely.

A great tour guide with lots of interesting information to share. The food itself was minimal and didn’t match our expectations especially for the price. We had fruit, chocolates, a taste of traditional cake and poncha. However the choice of savoury was disappointing - the small sample of scabbard fish was masked by batter and Thai sauce. Would have preferred a small piece of prego or maybe had a picado for the group to share.

We had a lovely afternoon with Grace. The tour started with a three course lunch followed by stops for wine and dessert, fruit, bread, cheese, cookies and cake, and poncha. The restaurant was very accommodating of a vegetarian diet.

Lovely day out. Great guide. Lovely food and experience. Guide needs to wait at the end for a tip. We all wanted to tip her but she shot off haha

Great tour covering many eateries and local flavours which really does give a great insight into Madeira's favourite flavours. If your attending from a Cruise Ship the shuttle drops you off within 5 minutes of the starting point 👍

Lots of variety of food and drinks included. Walked thru many area of town and received thorough information!

One of the best food tours we have been on. Four hours to learn about Funchal and eat some delicious local foods, wines and desserts.

A great array of things to try on our food tour! We had food in cubes, a whole lunch, some biscuits, some Gelato and finished off with some booze! Our guide was great - friendly, and chatty without being over tge top. Had a great afternoon wondering through the city (will def be back to the food in tubes place! Will happily go back to any of the places we went)

From the start of the tour, you get a real insight into the tastes and culture of Funchal. Our friendly guide made the whole experience even more interesting and the food was amazing! Even if walking tours are not usually your thing, this is a gentle stroll with lots of stops and opportunities to take in the surroundings. I would highly recommend.

Our tour guide was Ana Louisa and she was just amazing! So knowledgeable and personable. She really made the tour feel relaxed and like everyone although we had just met could be comfortable and enjoy our shared spaces. She encouraged us to enjoy, relax, and just be present in the moment. I would 100% recommend others getting a tour by her! Mahalo again Ana Louisa for an amazing experience! - your friends from Hawaii

Great experience with a knowledgeable and friendly guide who brought us to some really great food stops we would not have found on our own.

We had the wonderful Lina guide us, the tour was not only full of great food but lots of interesting information about Madeira and its history.

A relaxing and informative tour with a number of stops along the way that explained some of the history of Funchal as well as keeping you fed and watered.

Today has been a wonderful day. We’ve experienced food tours before and enjoyed them, but today Mara proved to be a professional and knowledgeable guide, who quite righty takes pride in Funchal and wants her party to experience it too. Food, wine and culture are all shared with warmth and enthusiasm. We enjoyed every minute. Thank you !

The tour was nice, nothing extraordinary. The host was very knowledgeable about the city and the culture. It was a nice way to spend the afternoon. The best part was after the tour, the group stayed in the last bar for an additional 2 hours chatting about shared experiences. Meeting new people is the reason to do these tours!!

We have just returned to our hotel after the most wonderful tour. The description just doesn’t do it justice. We experienced not just the tastes of Madeira but also learnt a little history. Cake,biscuits, tea, chocolate, Madeira, wine, lunch and then Ponca. Our guide was fabulous and also told us about life in Madeira Our time went too quickly, thank you 🥰

Our tour guide Isabel was very friendly, knowledgeable and likeable. However, we found the places we visited and the foods we ate a little underwhelming. Firstly, we stopped at the Funchal market but there was a missed opportunity for a tour of the markets (fruits, seafood, flowers etc) and we didn't get to taste the tropical fruits particular to Funchal! Instead, we spent most of the time at the market sat in an ice cream parlour which was a little disappointing. Next we stopped at a series of places trying the the garlic bread (Casa do Bolo do Caco), a cake/biscuit shop and a chocolate place. We thought that there were too many sweet / sugary items to eat before then having an early dinner. A bizarre mix - you normally have sweet items after savoury. The dinner was okay (chorizo, tempura Scabbard fish, tuna ceviche) and we finished at a cocktail but didn't like the rum drink it was too star rong. Personally we would've preferred more savoury treats (antipasto type stuff) and perhaps more local wines. Also, more visits to cultural / historical sites and less sweet shops. For the price we paid, we felt it was a little underwhelming but the group and tour guide were lovely that compensated for it.

Overall fantastic. A good mix of history/culture along with a lot of various food & drinks. Lina was an excellent guide

Wonderful sampling of local foods and lesson on the history and culture of Madeira. Graca was attentive to my wife’s gluten -free needs.

Awesome tour of the city. We are so much delicious food and had refreshing wines. Def recommended for a few hours in Funchal. Our guide was Lionor.

This food walking tour was amazing. We were thinking about doing the self guided tour but glad we chose this one. Our guide was friendly and informative and there was something to try for everyone. Highly recommended.

Our guide was excellent and gave us a great feel for Funchal culture history and food . We started in a lovely tea house and the lunch we had at the end was superb . We experienced many different dishes and at our final stop saw how the famous poncha is made

We had a great time with our guide Grace. She was so personable and I appreciated hearing information from a local of Madeira. The food was amazing and she gave us great insights on the city.

Fabulous, fun and interesting . Grace was absolutely wonderful both in depth of knowledge and engaging personality. The group size was perfect allowing us to enjoy the experience on a more intimate level-allowing the group to engage in lovely conversations. Thank you and make sure to come hungry!!

A great variety of food and drink were sampled, and our guide was extremely knowledgeable about everything related to Madeira. We even went an hour over & we didn't miss anything on the itinerary. We did it on the day we landed, and I highly recommend to get some great recommendations on what to do in Madeira.

We really enjoyed this walking food tour and would happily recommend it to anyone visiting Funchal. The small group size made it feel friendly and relaxed, and our guide spoke excellent English throughout. The food stops gave a great introduction to Madeira’s produce, with a nice balance of traditional dishes and more modern influences. One highlight was a delicious Thai-inspired soup made with local tuna. The pastel de nata was excellent, the Madeira wine tasting was good, and it was great to visit the colourful fresh fruit market and sample some of the local produce. Our guide had an impressive depth of knowledge about Madeira’s food, history and culture. The only area I think could be improved is the style of delivery. She dominated almost all of the conversation, meaning the rest of the group spent much of the tour sitting in silence while being talked at. I genuinely appreciated how knowledgeable she was, but the experience would have been even better with a little more interaction, encouraging conversation within the group rather than feeling like a lecture at points. I’d also love to see the itinerary expanded slightly to include a tasting at one of Madeira’s local producers, along with a stop for some of the excellent local ice cream. Overall 4/5 for us. It was a very enjoyable tour with just a little more interaction and one or two additional tasting stops, it would be exceptional.

This food tour was excellent. The guide (who's name escapes me) was very warm, welcoming, knowledgeable and patient. The tour was at a nice steady pace and included food, drinks, descriptions and a lot more. The tour wasn't fussy or rushed or pretentious. We really got a good sense of the places we went and Funchal. The guide also knew a lot more about Funchal and Madiera. It was good to interact either other members of the group. This is a great arrival tour or a few days in. We really enjoyed it.

This is a great introduction to the food and drink of Funchal. Our guide Carla was fantastic, giving us the history and culture behind each dish and taking us to some lovely out of the way spots I doubt I’d have found on my own. Make sure you arrive hungry!

Very nice tour with a guide that was very informative and nice. I can recommend this to anyone who is interested in the culture, history and food in Madeira.

We had a wonderful tour with Zelda. She was very knowledgeable and easy to talk to. We learnt a lot about Madeiran culture and of course the food. Thoroughly recommend this tour.

We had such a great experience with Ana Louisa. We almost chose not to book since it was a full 4 hours, but we're so happy we did. It was our first afternoon on Madeira and this tour was a wonderful way to be introduced to the food and the culture of the island. We would definitely recommend to anyone interested. FYI - my kids are 15 & 18yo and they both loved it.

We learned more about Madeira, it's history -- and especially the history of its food -- and enjoyed walking along some of the older streets in the city. We tasted tea, biscuits, fruit, chocolate, Madeira wine, and ended with a tasty selection of local dishes at Basalto, an excellent restaurant in a magnificent location. Our guide was extremely informative about all things Madeira and we learned a lot.

Darlene was our guide and did an outstanding job on providing a great experience on this tour. They had great in depth knowledge of Madeira and Funchal going into the past & present history of the country and city. The restaurants, cafes & bars visited along with tour were exceptional with a great range of local dishes, pastries and drinks on offer. Alcoholic & non-alcoholic beverages was available at all locations were applicable. Allergies and dietary requirements were accommodated well which was greatly appreciated. It’s got a good mix of walking and seating during the food tasting with bathrooms available along the trip. Darlene also did a great job on doing the tour in two languages English & Portuguese which kept all members engaged. Overall would say this is a must do when you visit.