Like many of the Azorean islands, Terceira might have more cows than people. So, despite being surrounded by seemingly endless ocean and super fresh fish, Terceira Island’s signature dish is in fact a fragrant and rich, slow-cooked beef stew known as alcatra.
Terceira Island’s food scene took me by surprise. Having visited São Miguel Island a number of times, I expected similar cuisine, but I think Terceira has held onto a handful of different centuries-old recipes and traditions that make it unique.
I’ll give a quick rundown of a few traditional Terceiran dishes to look for, then dive into where to eat on Terceira Island.
Read next… 3-day itinerary for Terceira Island
Quick rundown of traditional dishes and foods to try on Terceira Island
Alcatra (beef stew)
The island’s signature dish is a beef stew that’s cooked for at least four hours (usually more) in a terracotta or clay pot. In with the beef goes red wine, onion, salt, butter and/or lard, garlic, bacon, and whole allspice (sometimes called Jamaican pepper), which gives the dish its fragrance. Traditionally, it’s served with massa sovada, a sweet and fluffy super-light bread from the islands.
You can also find alcatra made with fish, and I even saw a vegetarian version with beans at Quinta do Martelo.
Dona Amélia (sweet)
The next most famous food from Terceira might be the Dona Amélia cake – small spiced tea cakes made with sugar cane molasses, cinnamon, raisins, and corn flour. The cakes were invented in honour of the last Portuguese queen when she visited the island.
Polvo guisado à moda Terceirense (stewed octopus)
Terceira has its own style of octopus stew, a rich and fragrant dish of chopped octopus in a sauce made with young red wine, garlic, onions, allspice, and tomato.
Lapas Grelhadas (grilled limpets)
Like other Azorean islands, you’ll find limpets grilled with garlic and butter as a starter.
Torresmos à Moda da Terceira (fried pork)
On the mainland, torresmos are more like pork crackling made with offal; but on Terceira, it’s a dish of marinated and fried pork belly. It’s often cooked with spices and pork blood, and served with yam or bread. If I had a second stomach, I would have tried it at Ti Choa (mentioned below).
Caldeirada de Peixe (fish stew)
Different to the alcatra made with fish, caldeirada is a dish found on the mainland too, with chunks of fish cooked with potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and peppers.
Queijo da Ilha (island cheese)
Terceira has lots of cows… and that means cheese! The most common style is just called “queijo da ilha” or island cheese. It’s a hard cheese made from cow’s milk, aged for different periods.
Read next… Where to eat on São Miguel Island, Azores
Best restaurants (that I tried) on Terceira Island
A Caneta
The steak at A Caneta might be one of the best I’ve ever eaten. I’d heard this traditional Azorean restaurant is unique on Terceira Island because it raises its own beef – the Aberdeen Angus breed, which is also grass-fed and dry-aged by the restaurant. While there were fancier T-bones on offer, just the €25 costeleta de novilho is worth flying back to Terceira for.
The family-run establishment, open since 1998, is a gem in the north-west of Terceira, close to Biscoitos. For starters, we devoured the bone marrow with toasted massa sovada (local sweet bread), house-made sausage, fresh goat’s cheese, and grilled limpets. Plus, we couldn’t skip trying alcatra – the famous fragrant beef stew from the island – before finishing with doce de vinagre (“vinegar sweet”, but actually just eggy and sweet) and pineapple flan.
📍 Address: Rua As Presas – 13 – Altares, Terceira Island
🍴 What to order: Steak, of any kind; alcatra; bone marrow
🗓️ Reservations: Book ahead by phone – lots of people were waiting for tables when we left
Taberna Roberto
Taberna Roberto is another name that frequently came up when looking for where to eat on Terceira Island. From the smallish dining room, you can see into the kitchen where a wood-fired oven does the heavy lifting. We were served by the Roberto, an efficient yet warm Terceiran who sources the freshest fish and top-quality meats from the island. To start, don’t skip the duck escabeche, a dish of cold, shredded duck in peppery, vinegary dressing with sliced onion and coriander. Delicious – one to repeat.
Other tables followed with the lightly seared tuna, but (not wanting the unique fruity, soy sauce twist) we went for grilled octopus and local lamb chops. Both were fantastic, but I particularly loved the lamb – it tasted more like New Zealand lamb, perhaps because the local lamb is grass-fed, unlike on the mainland of Portugal.
Roberto’s is known for its great wine selection – a wall of vinho where you can choose a bottle, though the selection of Azorean wines was smaller than we’d hoped. To finish, we somehow made space for dessert – a homemade lemon meringue tart and a decadent chocolate cake.
📍 Address: EN3-1A 3, 9700-230 Angra do Heroísmo
🍴 What to order: Roberto or his staff will tell you the menu in person – I don’t always love this, so I asked about prices and most were around €22-26 for mains
🗓️ Reservations: Booking essential, by phone
Ti Choa
Ti Chôa is a famous spot in the western end of the island that celebrates Terceira’s culinary traditions. Here you’ll find an (almost) living museum of historic objects in a stone house, where the menu reflects regional dishes mostly focused around meat – morcela (blood sausage), torresmos de cabinho (pork), and molho de fígado (liver).
It was the first place I tried alcatra on Terceira, and I wish someone could have captured my surprised face in that moment. I knew alcatra was a slow-cooked beef stew, but I didn’t realise how fragrant it would be. At Ti Choa, a sizzling terracotta bowl arrived on the table with the stew, cooked for four-to-six hours, with crispy bits on top, and served with rice, boiled potatoes, and massa sovada (sweet, soft bread).
According to a top Portuguese newspaper, Ti Choa was a guy who emigrated to America in the mid-20th century. When things didn’t go well, he returned to the island with plenty of stories to tell. He gained the nickname Ti Choa – choa being the Azorean pronunciation of the English word sure.
📍 Address: Grota do Margaride 1 Serreta, Terceira Island
🍴 What to order: alcatra beef stew or the tasting menu, which gives you a little bit of everything for basically the same price. I dined solo, and they allowed me to order a half-serve of alcatra (not all places do)
🗓️ Reservations: Book ahead by phone if possible
Quebra Mar (or Beira Mar)
Nowhere I wanted to dine in the Azores had an online reservation system. That meant making calls. I’d put it off for some time, compiling a list of everywhere I wanted to eat, knowing I needed to book tables or miss out – including Beira Mar, a spot that came highly recommended from multiple sources for great fresh fish. Each island in the Azores has a unique accent, and I was worried about not understanding anyone. However, five calls in and I was nailing it, speaking Portuguese and actually having fun… until I called this restaurant.
In a thick, fast slur of words, a man explained the restaurant was renovating but had a sister restaurant close by with the same menu, same owner, same view. I asked him to repeat the name of the other restaurant… and again… slow… and again… no luck. So I made a booking for somewhere on Terceira Island at 8pm. One Google map stalking session later, I found the spot: Quebra Mar, a five-minute walk away.
This no-frills seafood restaurant is located on the oceanfront, just to the west of the charming fishing village of São Mateus, on the outskirts of the main city, Angra do Heroísmo. Here, a large, covered veranda with huge glass doors fits dozens of tables and looks out to the sea and Monte Brazil park. Inside, you’ll find a glass counter filled with fresh Azorean fish, priced per fish. Otherwise, there’s a menu with fish soup, grilled prawns, octopus salad, limpets, fish fillets, squid, and grilled meats. We chose a large boca negra fish, which arrived with boiled potato, sweet potato and vegetables – perfectly grilled, and just in time for sunset.
📍 Address: Canada dos Arrifes 2, 9700-554 São Mateus da Calheta, Terceira Island
🍴 What to order: Grilled fish from the counter
🗓️ Reservations: Book ahead by phone, or be prepared to wait
Quinta do Martelo
Quinta do Martelo is a place to experience the rural history of Terceira. Close to Angra do Heroísmo, the 56-hectare farm’s old stone buildings have been carefully researched and restored into a living museum of old workshops, a grocer, a tavern, and guestrooms. This quinta (farm) was once at the heart of Terceira’s orange trade and later made wine and loquat brandy.
To reach the restaurant – A Venda do Ti Manel da Quinta – you’ll step through an old mercearia (grocer), straight from the early 20th century. Upstairs is the tavern, which feels like dining in someone’s home, complete with black-and-white family photos. We started with couvert – a tray of bar snacks typical to Terceira Island. It included pickled green fava beans in a spicy onion sauce, lupin beans, olives, boiled corn, and fresh cheese.
For mains, we were encouraged to order the alcatra, but the beef stew only comes in a two-person serve (and we were stuffed from days of eating heavy meals). Besides, the menu here offered a handful of island dishes you’ll be hard pressed to find elsewhere. Much of the produce used is grown organically at the farm, so we went for a fantastic vegetable soup. To follow, we shared the polvo guisado à moda Terceirense, a Terceira-style octopus stew. Pretty? No. Packed with flavour? Yes!
📍 Address: Canada do Martelo, Terceira PT, Cantinho, São Francisco das Almas 24, 9700-576 São Mateus da Calheta
🍴 What to order: local snacks to start; alcatra; local style fish soup; octopus stew
🗓️ Reservations: Book ahead if you can, by phone or email
Quinta dos Acores
Quinta dos Açores is a well-known local dairy brand that makes cheese, jams, and ice cream. It has a couple of restaurants on the island – very popular with the locals – but the main reason I wanted to visit was for the grocery shop and the ice cream counter.
The location outside of Angra is an easy turn off one of the main roads, the VR. I went for the Dona Amélia and fig jam ice cream flavours, two that worked well together and reflected the island. The restaurant has panoramic views back over the city of Angra do Heroísmo and the sea.
On the way in, pick up cheese, jams, cakes, spirits, gourmet Azorean food souvenirs, and even sausages or steak from a butcher counter.
📍 Address: Espaço Quinta dos Açores, Pico Redondo, 149, São Bento, 9700-211 Angra do Heroísmo
🍴 What to order: Drop in for lunch or dinner… or just a cheeky ice cream
🗓️ Reservations: Book ahead if you can, try a walk-in if not
Other restaurants to try on Terceira Island
We went during a big festival in Angra, so a couple of nights were spent eating street food. It means I still have quite a few restaurants I’d love to try. Next time I visit Terceira Island, I’ll definitely return to Caneta and Taberna Roberto…. Plus, I’m keen to try some of the below:
- Restaurant Rocha – sea views, specialising in meals cooked on a roof tile
- Fonte das Sete Bicas – Recommended by a Portuguese restaurant guide for the fish alcatra
- O Pescador – A top-rated and highly recommended seafood restaurant in Praia da Vitória
- Queijo Vaquinha – cheesemaker that you can drop into for a tasting
- Galinha do Diniz – restaurant famous for its fried chicken
- Coffee Cabana – coffee farm that grows, roasts and brews its own beans
- Tasca das Tias – a taverna in Angra with a cute vibe
- O Forno Pastelaria – a top spot to try local sweets like the Dona Amélia cake
- A Canadinha – a no-frills Terceiran tasca
Anywhere else I should add my Terceira Island food guide? Leave me a comment….
