Azores – where to eat the best steaks?

If you’ve read our previous posts about the Azores, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve already trumpeted to you several times about the beautiful green grass and over-happy cows. These cows are bred not only for milk, but also for the famous Azorean steaks.

Be warned, this is not a post for vegetarians ;-) Today we will focus on those more-or-less blood steaks, of which we have definitely never been fans. Did this trip change anything? From now on, do we look at every cow as a potential hard-fried piece of meat?

Azorean’s famous steaks

Personally, I am not fond of meat. It could not exist for me. I have gone through many stages without meat, with better or worse health results. After each such experiment, I drew some conclusions, and I think that if I were tozłto vegetarianism now, I would already know how to properly balance my diet and prepare meals so that I would not have any deficiencies, and how to cope with travel. There are many reasons why meat should be avoided, or at least limited, starting with ethical ones and ending with health ones. Nevertheless, I don’t see anything złwith occasionally eating meat, especially meat that doesn’t come from mass farms, which is exactly what we can easily get in the Azores.

The Azores are famous for steak – for us this is as obvious now (after our stay in the Azores) as it is to try Italian ice cream in Rome and sushi in Japan. It’s said to have some of the best steaks in the world (and certainly the best in Europe), so we decided to find out for ourselves.

The only problem is that neither of us is a connoisseur and expert in this field. We’ve tried steak maybe once or twice in our entire lives and it never appealed to us, but maybe that’s because we’ve never tried good steak? Where to find out than in the Azores?

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This is where the happy cows live, spending the whole year in the vast green pastures. They eat what nature has created, they can move around, they are clean, and they are not crammed in a tight cage and stuffed with cloggers. Of great importance is the fact that in the Azores there is no typical winter, so unlike in Poland, they do not have to spend several months in the barn.

Where to eat steak in the Azores?

Throughout the trip, we tried steaks at the entire two restaurants so that we could at least have the opportunity to compare. Here are our approaches:

Restaurant in Ponta Delgada – Calçada do Cais

Restaurant recommended by a friend of a friend, a friend ;) This is where real men, on a manly outing enjoyed blood steaks. So we decided to give it a try, since it was so highly praised. We made two approaches, because the first time we hit a “break.” For the second, it was better – at least it was open (around 2 pm). We ordered one medium steak and another, more traditional dish, in case the beef couldn’t be eaten after all.

The restaurant gave the impression of being rather exquisite, where one comes more for the wine tasting than the food itself, but this did not deter us. The decor was to our liking and we must admit that the food was attractively served.

As for the taste, the steak did not knock it down. We’ll say more: we were close to stopping the search for the perfect steak. The meat was dry, stringy, zero pleasure to eat.

However, we put this down to our inexperience and decided to try again.

Restaurante da Associação Agrícola de São Miguel

On the next approach we ended up at the most popular restaurant on the island. Although the word restaurant may misrepresent the atmosphere of the place. It’s more fitting to have a canteen, well let it be Canteen, because the prices raise the profile a bit, though.

Before entering the restaurant, however, it is worth noting the place itself – it is a large farm, on the grounds of which there is a sizable hall, where demonstrations and auctions of the ripest specimens are held (the less handsome ones, too, probably). It is the largest exhibition hall in the Azores at 4,000 sqm. We saw the stalls and stands, so we could let our imagination run wild and see with our eyes how bustling the place is during “cattle” events.

In the building, where the restaurant is located, you can preview trophies, photos and even a special newspaper that describes events and specimens that appear here. Surprisingly, the venue is also promoted as ideal for conferences, weddings, trade shows, etc.

The fact that we had time to read the aforementioned magazines was not due to our interest, but more due to boredom, as it turned out that you have to wait for a free table at the restaurant and the order of sign-ups on the list applies. Fortunately, the waitzłmaybe 20 minutes, so we eagerly entered the restaurant, still unaware that we would have to wait another 20 minutes for the waiter, and then another 30 minutes for the food ;)

The place is full of contrasts: on the one hand, dignified waiters, elegant decor, sublime menus, and on the other hand, noise, bustle, chaos and large TVs on. It was hard to call a waiter, because we were served by a total of 4(!) people who did not communicate with each other, but were not near us.

Prices were rather high – depending on the portion and type of meat, you have to pay between 6 and 22 euros for a steak. We ordered two: a chef’s steak (meat with ham, mushrooms and gravy) and a more feminine steak with passion fruit, both medium well.

We may surprise you, but they were the most…. better steaks we’ve had :)

Yes, there wasn’t a lot of it, but the way it was served, fried and the sauces (especially the passion fruit one) were very much to our liking. The portions were really decent and we couldn’t fit a single piece of traditional Polish cheesecake anymore ;)

This is where we came to the conclusion that there are too many variables that can affect the taste of this meat – both the type, the degree of frying and the sauce are so significant that they can make the steak taste completely different and not hit the taste of the steak layman, and from that it’s a short way to discouragement of this dish.

Summary

We tried them, they were delicious, but does that mean we loved the steaks? Definitely not. Both ;)

The steak must be really well prepared, according to your preferences. To know what you like it is worth trying several, comparing and deciding what suits you best.

We consider the search for a good steak as successfully completed and will not look further especially :)

Here you can find our other posts about the Azores.