The Portuguese Madeira Club in Marrickville is a cultural institution. Founded in 1968 this hidden gem offers an authentic experience of Portuguese culture, with its food, wine and music all in a simple but comfortable setting. The club is hidden away, located down a street in a light industrial part of Marrickville.
Just to make things a bit more of confusing, Sydney has three Portuguese clubs and they're all located in Marrickville. That can make it confusing for people meeting at one (you can't just say "I'll see you at the Portuguese club!") but each of them has a different personality, location and menu. We've already tried two of the three: Tasca, Portuguese Community Club and Casa do Benfica but this evening we are visiting the Portugal Madeira Club for dinner.
The Portugal Madeira Club is tucked away on Denby Street, amongst a lot of light industrial buildings. While there are some outdoor tables this section looks to be more a smoking area and the inside restaurant and bar is where everyone is eating. Valentina and Peter are there already and the restaurant has two other tables of large Portuguese families dining there. Service is friendly and helpful from our Brazilian waiter and he makes some recommendations.
The food takes it time to arrive and in the meantime they bring us some white rolls and olives. I enjoy the salty olives.
The chorizo comes as curled over, grilled slices with pickles and olives to balance the rich, garlicky pork sausage. Remember life before chorizo became popular in Australia? I know, it was a bleak time.
We also order the pippies that come in a divine butter, garlic, lemon, white wine and coriander sauce. The pippies are tender and perfectly cooked and they are plentiful too with each of us amassing a large collection of shells on our plate. "Can you try and make a recipe for this?" asks Valentina who is quite happily drinking spoonfuls of the wonderful sauce.
The Carne de Porco Alentejana is one of my favourite Portuguese dishes because I love the flavour of the sauce. I came to love this dish while holidaying in Portugal. Black pork or Porco Preto comes from the Iberian pig and is a popular meat in some areas of Portugal, the Alentejo and the Algarve. In this dish it is served with clams, coriander, tiny fried potatoes and pickled vegetables with a coriander, wine and red pepper sauce.
Espetada is the dish that you order when you want some table action. It's beef on an enormous skewer that towers over everyone at the table. The beef itself is simply seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic and bay leaf. The beef is tender and goes well with the salad and thick cut fries (not pictured).
I love the presentation of the Codfish, which is a Portuguese staple. Here the codfish fillet is rehydrated and served atop three whole potatoes with plenty of olive oil and golden fried crispy garlic. Codfish can have a strong flavour but the garlic and olive oil balances it nicely.
I love Portuguese round chips so we ordered an extra serve of fries. These do not disappoint, they're crispy and well seasoned and totally moreish. I think I polished off most of these.
We were going to just get one dessert to share because we were very full and although we ordered three mains between four people the serves are very generous. However we weren't able to decide which dessert we were getting so it was one of each. The chocolate mousse is light and airy and pitch dark in colour.
The crème caramel is a tasty version of the dessert with plenty of caramel sauce and while everyone proclaims they are full Mr NQN sweeps in and finishes it all. By the time we are scooping up the last of this, a football team enters and fills the rest of the tables in the restaurant ordering up espetadas all around.
So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever visited the Madeira Club in Marrickville or any other Portuguese club in Sydney? What was your favorite aspect of the experience?
This meal was independently paid for.
Portugal Madeira Club
1 Denby St, Marrickville NSW 2204
Monday - Wednesday 10am-8pm
Thursday - Saturday 10am-10pm
Sunday 10am-6pm
Phone: (02) 9569 9015
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