Restaurante da Associação Agrícola

When researching the best restaurants on São Miguel, all lists include Restaurante da Associação Agrícola. Every list proclaimed you must try the “Bife à Regional” – steak topped with a fried egg, garlic and local peppers. Of course only Azorean beef is served in the restaurant. We were surprised to learn while on the island that cows outnumber humans in the Azores! That helps explain the abundance of delicious cheese! Because São Miguel is so green, there is a vast amount of fertile land and grass for the cows to eat. This results in rich, marbled beef for everyone on the island! As you may have gathered from the name of the restaurant, Restaurante da Associação Agrícola belongs to an association of farmers. Everyone on the island knows this is where you go for the highest quality beef – even the woman sitting next to me on my flight from Lisbon to Ponta Delgada recommended we go here!

I’ve mentioned it already, but everything in the Azores is so inexpensive compared to Belgian standards. Restaurante da Associação Agrícola is expensive by Azorean standards, but great price-quality value by mine! Definitely go here if you’re on São Miguel! In addition to the steaks, they have an excellent assortment of Azorean wines, regional specialties and sweets!

To start: Blood sausage with regional pineapple

We both ordered the “Associaçao” steak, topped with a fried egg, garlic, and local peppers. You can choose from 3 different sizes, but considering the price we both ordered the biggest and had to take the leftovers home with us 🙂

Koen’s chocolate and cheese ice cream – interesting, but good!

And for me a selection of local pastries: Queijada da Graciosa (star shaped sweet from the Azorean island Graciosa, flavored with cinamon), Queijada de Feijão da Ribeira Grande (bean filled pastry from the town Ribeira Grande on São Miguel), and Queijada da Vila Franca do Campo (filled with ground almonds and topped with sugar, from the town of Vila Franca do Campo on São Miguel)