Laurissilva, smoked, fermented and preserved: a dive into the essence of Madeira with chef Octávio Freitas
Telling the story of traditional Madeira cuisine is not within everyone’s reach. One of the exceptions is the chef Octávio Freitas, who, in the kitchen of Desarma, a restaurant located on top of The Views Baía hotel, located in Funchal, works on the uses and customs of Madeirans, with ancestral fish drying techniques and “proximity products”. While smoked foods are visible to everyone, vinegars and fermented foods are the subject of constant experimentation. Without forgetting the Laurissilva. Everything fits into the menus designed, either for the kitchen, under the name “Bancada do Chef”, with 12 moments, or for the living room, with the names “A Batalha do Chef” and “Munidos de Sentido”, with, respectively, nine and six moments. Remember that the restaurant won a Michelin star at the first exclusively Portuguese gala in February.
“I am enormously proud of the land where I was born, of the legacy I received. Therefore, I feel that I have to give back to the kitchen what it gave me”, highlights Octávio Freitas. Starting with the amuse-bouche with scallop. This one has the pot and great plan. It is subjected to drying in Desarma’s kitchen, “to make pork cracklings for this appetizer”, similar to what is done in Câmara de Lobos, “where they open and put the pot to dry on a clothesline. It is rubbed with garlic and pepper and served as a snack”, describes the chef.
Smoked fish in Desarma’s kitchen
Pedro Sadio
From the Laurissilva, the indigenous forest of Madeira, a “Relic of the Tertiary”, which dates back around 20 million years, and which is part of Desarma’s identity, the “Cured tuna, bay leaf and roasted garlic” should be highlighted. . This snack marks the beginning of the “Bancada do Chef” menu and is inspired by the regional kebab. But, instead of beef, Octávio Freitas opts for “cured tuna and then smoked with bay leaves. Why the blonde? Because the laurel represents the identity of Madeira”. Or were the laurel not one of the endemic trees of that forest, on which the chef do Desarma wants to “do research work, to share”.
Vinegars by chef Octávio Freitas
“Sword roe, rye crumb, vilhão sauce” is, according to Octávio Freitas, an inspiration for the sword sandwich, served in taverns spread across the island of Madeira. This is one of the snacks of the “Encontro”, the second moment of Desarma’s “Chef’s Bench” menu. In composition, it contains “sword roe and is topped with villain sauce”. The latter is very common in Madeiran cuisine, where white wine and wine vinegar are the stars.
“Typical cuisine is found in bars, at parties and, often, in people’s homes”, reinforces the cook, who recalls the limited resources of many Madeiran families when presenting the “Ancestral wheat bread” from the “Bancada do Chef” menu. . At this moment, a “caramelized onion snail, lard and onion reduction” is served. The objective is to portray this reality from other times, when “they dipped a slice of bread in the meat cooking sauce” and lard was commonly “used to spread the bread”.
Trio of snacks from the Chef’s Bancada menu
Pedro Sadio
Maritime charcuterie
To complement this moment of good eating, “maritime charcuterie” is served. For example, Octávio Freitas uses the belly and gelatin from grouper heads to make sausages. “It’s one of the ways to make the products at Desarma profitable”, he explains. This action falls into the smoked category. “I have been doing this task since I was 18 and have always smoked my own. At Desarma, I began to explore this technique further, applying drying in a traditional smokehouse and in a temperature-controlled chamber.” Just look at the back of the kitchen to realize that the practice of smoking is permanent.
This theme “is associated with a very old crisis in Madeira”, which determined the option of drying the fish. Dry skipjack is one of these examples and continues to be served in traditional restaurants, especially in Caniçal, located on the east coast of the island. “There is a great influence of dried fish in the diet of Madeirans, although it was never a staple of Madeira’s gastronomy”, he states, giving as an example the prohibition on the capture of gata or sabata, or “bacalhau de Câmara de Lobos”, which was sold dry. Or the dried pota itself, mentioned above.
Desarma Restaurant
The stories about the island of Madeira are endless, from the dried limpets, used in the “Encontro” trio of the “Bancada do Chef” menu, which portray a real episode, “to be transported out of Madeira by Madeirans who had family far away of the island”, in the words of Octávio Freitas, to the proliferation of trout throughout the Madeiran territory. “Salazar wanted there to be fish everywhere, hence the distribution of this fish’s eggs throughout the island”, says the chef.
Galatrixa and Cagarra white wines from 2022
Vinegar and wine
Vinegars are the subject of study in the “toy room” and are widely used in pickles made at Desarma. Here is Octávio Freitas’ rehearsal space at the award-winning hotel restaurant The Views Baía, where the vinegars come from. “I did five. It’s a very interesting part of my cooking, to achieve the balance of acidity and freshness in the menu. The vegetables are subjected to water and salt, and the conservation process is natural.” It also does kombuchas. “I let it age for a few months and then I make vinegar and I’ve even added it to the homemade yeast used in Desarma’s bread”, which is produced from flour from the island of Madeira.
“But be careful, the acidity is not marked in my dishes, it is just to achieve balance with the other products in the dish”, warns the Madeiran cook. An example of this is “Malmonette, carrot, spices, old mustard”, in which that tuber is served in various textures and adds a soft touch of acidity to the dish. But the chef want to go further. “I asked my supplier to pick the carrots early. In some cases, have greener vegetables, to obtain acidity in a natural way and balance the amount of sugars”, he explains.
Smoked grapes at Desarma restaurant
“The alchemy of wines came to help me with this issue of balance”, he says as a wine producer, that is, under the Octávio Freitas Winery banner. The grape is harvested in vineyards located “further south of mainland Portugal”, he emphasizes, referring to the Socalco Nature Calhetaa rural tourism space founded in 2020. Galatrixa is the name given to the first label, a 2021 white made from three typical Madeira grape varieties: Verdelho, Malvasia Fina and Terrantez. “The wine is produced at Adega de São Vicente and the winemaker is João Pedro Machado”, he informs. to the test is the white Galatrixa 2022.
In 2022, the production of white Cagarra made from the Sercial and Verdelho grape varieties will begin. These come “from a vineyard in Prazeres, located 700 meters above sea level”, he states. The new products include Massaroco, the label of a rosé and a claret from 2023. Both are made from Tinta Negra, harvested in a trellis vineyard, located in São Vicente, a municipality located on the north coast of the island of Madeira, and Merlot , and were this Saturday, September 28th, at the Martin Boutique Wines Farmhouse (Rua de São Torcato, 19, Quinta da Palmeira Branca, Coruche. Tel. 911130173), farm owned by the sommelier Pedro Martin.
Henry Seruca
Claret and sparkling wine
For 2025, in Calheta, more innovations are planned for wine production: a claret and a sparkling wine. As for the Desarma restaurant (The Views Baía, Rua das Maravilhas, 74, Funchal. Tel. 291700220), the “Sem Medos” wine list also stands out. Composed of over a hundred Madeira wines, such as the Cossart Gordon Bual 1958 or the Cossart Gordon Verdelho 1975, or the ABSL Sercial 1980, selected to make a perfect pairing with the “Salmon, carrot, spices, old mustard”. All references, including those for still wines, are presented accurately by sommelier João Barbosa in this promising restaurant!
Razão Restaurant, in Socalco Nature Calheta, winner in the Gastronomic Tourism 2023 category
