Where to stay

Mandarin Oriental, Macau Avenida Dr Sun Yat Sen, 00 853 8805 8888, mandarinoriental.com. Stylish and contemporary hotel on the NAPE waterfront, with views over Nam Van Lake, the three bridges to Taipa island and the Macau tower. Sophisticated and high-tech, there’s a spa and a pool overlooking the South China Sea. Doubles from £220 with breakfast.

Pousada de São Tiago Avenida República, Fortaleza de Sao Tiago da Barra, 00 853 2837 8111, saotiago.com.mo. An atmospheric 17th-century fortress turned boutique Relais & Châteaux hotel with 12 suites and antique Portuguese furniture. Catalan chef Hector Costa serves Spanish fare. Doubles from £280.

Sofitel Macau at Ponte 16 Rua do Visconde Paco de Arcos, 00 853 8861 0016, sofitel.com. Located on the waterfront near the Historic Centre, this is the ideal base for walking to the sights. Doubles from £125.

Travel Information

Currency is the Macau pataca (MOP) – athough the Hong Kong dollar is widely accepted. Macau is eight hours ahead of GMT. Macau has a humid subtropical climate. In the summer months, daytime temperatures exceed 30°C and average to 14.5°C in winter. Rainy season is from April to September.

Getting there;
Cathay Pacific (020 8834 8888, cathaypacific.co.uk) flies four times a day from London Heathrow to Hong Kong.

British Airways (08444 930 787, ba.com) flies daily to Hong Kong.

TurboJET (turbojet.com.hk) operates between Hong Kong and Macau.

Resources;
Macau Government Tourist Office (020 8334 8328,macautourism.gov.mo) provides extensive resources to help you plan your visit.

Where to eat

António 3 Rua dos Negociantes, Taipa, 00 853 2899 9998, antoniomacau.com. Authentic Portuguese cuisine; chef-patron António does most of the cooking himself. Three courses £30.

Café Tai Lei Loi Kei 18 Largo Governador Tamagnini Barbosa, Taipa, 00 853 2882 7150. Authentic pork chop buns from £1.

Espaço Lisboa 8 Rua das Gaivotas, Coloane, 00 853 2888 2226 Relaxed restaurant in Coloane village serving Portuguese cusine. £25.

Koi Kei 11-13 Rua do Cunha, Taipa, 00 853 2882 7458, koikei.com A popular sweet and cake emporium, selling over 300 varieties.

Leiteria I Son 7 Largo do Senado. Milk puddings from £1.

Lord Stow’s Bakery 1 Rua da Tassara, Coloane Town Square, 00 853 2888 2534, lordstow.com. Home of the original egg tart.

O’Manel 90 Rua de Fernão Mendes Pinto, Taipa, 00 853 2882 7571. A well-loved Portuguese restaurant owned by Manuel Pena. £10.

O Porto Interior 259b Rua do Almirante Sérgio, 00 853 2896 7770. Inexpensive Macanese fare such as African chicken. £20.

Restaurante Litoral 261a Rua do Almirante Sérgio, 00 853 2896 7878, restaurante-litoral.com. Macanese food in a relaxed setting. £20

The 8 Grand Lisboa Hotel, Avenida de Lisboa, 00 853 8803 7788, grandlisboahotel.com. Michelin-starred Cantonese. Tasting menu £30.

Food Glossary

Food and Travel Review

It’s 11am and the people of Macau are getting their lactose fix. Milkshakes, milk puddings, ice-creams and egg breakfasts go down like there’s no tomorrow. And at Leitaria I Son milkbar, near Senado Square, small white dishes of steamed milk pudding fly from fridge to table to mouth. The silky desserts and drinks come laced with ginger, topped with mango or coconut ice-cream, red beans or ginkgo, or stirred with sago and nuts. Leitaria I Son has been around for 150 years and the owners have their own dairy herd on the mainland to ensure freshness and supply. Earlier in the day I was demolishing pastéis de natas – Portuguese egg tarts straight out of the oven (creamy, crumbly, and moreish – a must-try in Macau), and the night before I was devouring bowls of ice-cold leite-crème and pudim flan (Portuguese-style crème brûlée and crème caramel). It seems that whatever the differences in Portuguese and Chinese cuisines, they will always meet over a milk pudding in Macau.

Perching on the western side of the Pearl River Delta, on the south-east coast of China, Macau is a one-hour trip by ferry from Hong Kong, yet a world away in terms of look and feel. Just 29sq km in size – spanning the main peninsula as well as the two adjoining islands of Taipa and Coloane – it’s a peaceful and laidback enclave, with picturesque hillsides, gardens and swimming beaches, popular with day-trippers and holidaymakers from Hong Kong and China. They are drawn to Macau by the food, recreation and the increasing number of casinos that have opened in recent years.

In the past 10 years, the city’s skyline has changed dramatically. Skyscrapers soar above low-rise Chinese teahouses and ancient monuments, while development continues around the NAPE waterfront and on the Cotai Strip – a patch of reclaimed land between Taipa and Coloane. But for all the change, Macau retains the character and charm that has lured visitors for centuries.

Settled by the Portuguese in the 16th century and only handed back to China in 1999 (after which it became known as the Macau Special Administrative Region or MSAR), Macau was the first and last European settlement in China. It is a harmonious blend of cultures, a cross-fertilisation of food, people, architecture and atmosphere. In the old city, where the streets are paved with black-and-white Portuguese tiles depicting sea creatures and fish, and colonnaded buildings line the square, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were in Europe. In the markets, in the backstreets and on Taipa and Coloane islands, the experience is resolutely Chinese.

Today, gambling may be Macau’s biggest industry, but to come here just to gamble your time away would be to miss the point. This is a city rich in cultural heritage. Around the Historic Centre, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are more than 20 buildings of both Portuguese and Chinese origin – Taoist temples, baroque churches, 17th-century fortresses, Chinese houses and sugar-coloured colonial mansions with courtyard walls decorated in azulejo tiles. The A-Ma Temple – built to commemorate the seafaring goddess A-Ma, after whom the city is named – is Macau’s oldest place of worship, with its Ming shrines and pavilions and an intoxicating scent of incense. Nearby are the iconic ruins of the old Jesuit church of São Paulo, and the Mandarin’s House, a Chinese residence built in 1881.

Macanese dishes combine elements of Portuguese, Cantonese, Indian, Brazilian, Malay and African cuisines, thanks to the spices brought to the peninsula from around the world by Portuguese explorers. This legacy is best sampled in the fusion cuisine at Restaurante Litoral, near A-Ma Temple, owned by Manuela Ferreira.

Mrs Ferreira is something of a culinary activist in Macau, having rallied against the norm of predominantly male-owned Portuguese restaurants on the peninsula, and set up her own base serving traditional recipes passed down through generations of women. According to her, Macanese food was born in the home, cooked by the ladies of the house, and should be brought to the public by them. It’s homely, wholesome fare with a dash of zing. We try the caldo verde – a simple Portuguese soup of cabbage, potato and chouriço – followed by the house special, African chicken, made with peanuts and just the slightest dash of piri-piri. Another of the restaurant’s specialities is shrimp soup, which is served inside a bread loaf. I’m told it’s best to leave the soup to soak into the loaf for a few minutes, so by the time I get to it I’m scooping out flavoursome gooey bread as well as whole prawns. Surprisingly, Portuguese wine is cheaper in Macau than in Portugal, so we raise a toast to our visit with glasses of chilled vinho verde. Saúde!

As well as Macanese fusion restaurants, there is also a plethora of authentic Portuguese eateries on Taipa island, including António – run by António Coelho, a flamboyant chef who makes crêpes Suzette on a trolley in front of guests, using three types of brandy for flavour and impressive flames – and O’Manel’s. Manel Pena, a personable middle-aged man came to Macau 30 years ago from Portugal to work in a hotel, married a Chinese lady and opened his restaurant in 1991. Within seconds of our arrival, appetisers of olives, chilli and pata negra (Iberico ham) arrive, as do a couple of bottles of dry white and a basket of fresh bread. A bell rings and out follow plates of pork ribs, fried potatoes, pasteis de bacalhau (fried cod cakes) and wedges of lemon.

Manuel goes to the market himself twice a day to pick out the best meat and fish, and the catch of the day is chalked up on a blackboard at the back of the room. Manuel’s clams may come from Vietnam and his cod from Norway, but his recipes come from his mother. ‘In the beginning I used to call her every day to check I was making the dishes right,’ he says. ‘Portuguese food is really very simple. We just add a little salt, make a quick sauce, that’s it.’

The Portuguese influence is also in evidence on Coloane island. South of Taipa, Coloane is known as the ‘city’s lungs’ thanks to its forested hills, beaches and golf courses. Standing at the top of the hill, overlooking the bay, is a white marble statue of the goddess A-Ma, and nearby is the Cultural Village temple.

In Coloane Village, narrow alleyways lead around the backs of decaying grey-brick houses, with sleepy backyards where dogs lie out in the sun and families sit and eat. The fishing shacks – a row of wooden buildings on stilts overlooking the Pearl River Delta – lie semi derelict, but plans are afoot to turn them into restaurants. Wooden junks are still hand-carved in the boat yards. Temples, shrines, restaurants and houses cluster around the main square, including restaurant Espaço Lisboa, which serves fish cataplana – sea bass, potatoes, mushrooms and a creamy sauce – the traditional way in a copper pot, and, close by, Lord Stow’s Bakery sells one of Macau’s most famous creations – the Portuguese egg tart.

Story has it that ‘Lord’ Andrew Stow came to Macau from England in 1979 to work as an industrial pharmacist but, struck with the idea of selling European baking products to the Chinese, he opened his own shop selling home-made egg tarts. His recipe is a secret, but it combines the best of English and Portuguese styles of baking – a Portuguese pastry cup with a very English custard filing, with a grilled-sugar top. The tarts have become a Macanese institution in their own right, and Lord Stow now has outlets in Taiwan, Tokyo and Seoul. Sampled straight from the oven, these are reason enough for not just crossing the Delta, but for flying halfway around the world.

Chinese people love their sweets, and Macau is also famous for its pastelaria, or pastry shops. At Koi Kei on Rua do Cunha (known as Food Street) on Taipa island, the shelves sag with the weight of nut brittle, egg rolls, sesame toffee and nougat – all made on the premises in vats over coal stoves. The sticky, sweet mixture for ginger candies is poured onto a deck, spread out to cool then cut into pieces; the threads of fresh ginger running through each sweet kick like a mule. Almond biscuits – a Macanese speciality – are also sold, pressed in moulds and arranged onto bamboo basket trays.

If cakes and dairy snacks satisfy Macau’s sweet tooth, noodle bars and Cantonese restaurants and ‘pork chop buns’– the Macanese version of a hamburger – satisfy hunger at mealtimes. At the Wong Chi Kei noodle shop on Senado Square – with its iconic wave patterned mosaic of coloured stones – the noodles are made the traditional Cantonese way using a bamboo stick as a pivot to press down the flour mix. When we visit, two little girls with pigtails devour bowls of congee and wontons at the table opposite, while a couple next to us pour jasmine tea from battered silver pots. I take my cue from the girls and order a bowl of wonton with shrimp dumplings.

The ingredients are likely to have come from the nearby St Dominic Market. Spanning three floors, it is a warren of stalls selling all manner of fresh and dry ingredients, most of which is imported from the Chinese mainland. Chicken’s feet protrude from boxes and pigs’ trotters poke out in neat rows from under indeterminable cuts of meat. At a vegetable stall, an old lady tops and tails carrots the size of pint glasses, while her son arranges bags of lotus seeds, mushrooms, chestnuts and pak choi. A fishmonger scrapes the scales off small grouper brought in that day from Vietnam. Much of the fish arrives at the market via the ‘Posto de Inspecao de Pescado do Patane’, the docking station for the fresh produce brought from overseas. Here, crates of fresh fish are unloaded on the water’s edge to be scaled, gutted and eaten on the spot, or inspected and sold to the markets and restaurants around the city.

The produce also makes its way into Macau’s surprisingly numerous fine-dining restaurants – including nine with Michelin stars. One such is The 8 restaurant at the Grand Lisboa Hotel, which serves traditional Cantonese with a distinct contemporary twist. Inside, the décor is dark, sleek and stylish – more western than Chinese – with a huge mirror-ball hanging from the ceiling and reflected back in the polished black floor as the number eight – considered lucky in Chinese. Paintings of goldfish adorn the walls and water flows down the entrance walls, symbolizing fortune and money. Executive chef Andy Ng painstakingly constructs beautiful pieces of fresh dim sum – steamed crab claw with ginger and vintage cheese wine, Shanghainese dumplings with Yunnan ham, sweet almond soup with bird’s nest. The stir-fried lobster with egg, and minced pork with black bean is tangy but subtle and complements the sweetness of the lobster. Each dish is a work of art, and as with all good Cantonese cuisine, it is mild and delicate with much care taken to balance nutrition, flavour, colour and texture.

Our visit coincides with the mid-autumn festival, or Tchong Chau Chit – a celebration of the 15th day of the eighth moon. Fireworks take centre stage over Nam Van Lake in Macau’s inner harbour, while on Coloane island families head to the beaches to picnic under the full moon and exchange mooncakes. These round pastries are filled with lotus-seed paste and a salted egg yolk – symbolising the full moon – and each is decorated with the Chinese character for ‘harmony’ – very appropriate for this melting pot of a city.