The Saint's STREET Maria, when the Madeira was built in 1430, ten years after the discovery for Gonçalves Zarco, is the most ancient of the island. The recuperation taken care of this old zone of the Funchal, where the settlement began, with the fronts well restored in the narrow and paved streets, shows us the best of " jardinismo '.

Around the Market of "Mercado dos Lavradores" is, where the exuberance of the sale of local flowers is mixed by the called exotic fruits and the subtropical vegetables. In the beach of the fish, the freshness of the bodião is appreciated already,of the enormous tunas.

And it is this authenticity of the fresh products that proposes us the restoring Gavião Novo, in Saint's Street Maria. 0 aspect is an ode a nice and small bar (it has a capacity of 26 persons, on nine tables), of open doors, in which the walls are covered by photographies and postcards of the satisfied customers - with great tourist, especially in the first shifts.

From the side objected to the tables, it can already be seen what there is of fresh fish. Because it the question is a house essentially fish - though there also is a reduced offer of meats (the celebrated stuck Madeirans in stick of laurel or a cow's beef with scraped tomato and shrimp, income of the mother of the owner of the house).

To begin, we go for the local customs: lapas with butter of garlic and lemon or water snails (designated Madeiran for the burriés). The passage of the owner for Spain makes it present two entries brought of Iá: the bread with tomato and ham, and the shrimps al ajillo.

In the fishes, there we have the grilled bodião (what we choose, advised well by Vicente Jorge Silva, who was accompanying us, and it guaranteed to be the true specialty of the house),  the tuna - not to speak already in sorts with which the continental ones are more familiarized like the grouper or the grouper. Always accompanied with a small potato and vegetables (the Madeiran 'vaginha', for example), fresh. And there is another specialty, which only is done by order and which was crossed for a near time: the fish stew without bones.

To the lunches, there is always a dish of the day. with receipts of the domestic and familiar kitchen of the owner (" it is not how in the restaurant, it is how at our home "), he insists): corn cooked with beef of tuna, rice of head of fish, chicharros boys fried with rice of tomato of gecko, fish stew of tuna a sort of cod to the Gomes Sá, etc.

To finish off, we have the tropical, own fruit of the Madeira. Or then, in sweet, these two specialties of the house: the pudding of passion fruit and the roast milk (being a last East a consequence of a stay of the owner in the Canárias).

The list of wines, not being very varied. it satisfies the necessities. We chose, and well. for the Count d ' White Ervideira Reserva.

Final result: it is not possible to say what should be very cheap (the count concerns three diners) - but, when the full satisfaction was given, also not Ihe would call expensively.

The school of Ricardo Ruel

Ricardo Ruel, the owner and chief of the kitchen of the New Hawk, defines so his receipts: " They are more of product of which of preparation ". And the definition is certain. Though he thinks, and apparently with reason, that, while always cultivating also the receipts of of his family, it opened a house different from everything what exists in the Madeira, and vein to cover a gap.

Having been born in an environment of fishermen and sellers of fish (" it was rare to eat up meat at my home "), people of the Machico and of the Plantation of reeds, his specialty was drawn to the departure. Then there was a taste for the food in the family, which took it from early accompanying it the mother in the kitchen, and wanting to learn this work.

Ruel, 42 years, began to work to the 9, in a restaurant that was then celebrated in the island, and that does not exist already: the TickTick. 0 beginning was washing plates, but always of eye in the kitchen, where it would arrive again later. It did the troop, emigrated for Spain, worked in kitchens of restaurants of Cádis and Saint's Puerto Maria, joined money, came having two restaurants in the Canárias. He me them wanted to return to the land, and thought that it could do it opening there an original restaurant, quite different from everything that existed: " The generalized practice wanted to contradict, using only products of much quality, and always fresh ". It was so that the New Hawk appeared, in 2000. It could be on the sea, of where there comes the product with which more it works; but that air of pure bar, in the old zone of the city, not Ihe stays not badly at all.

Gavião Novo
Adress: Holy street Maria, 131, Funchal
Tel: 291 229 238