William Reid was a true entrepreneur. He knew from personal experience that Madeira offered the perfect year-round destination for people requiring a warm climate for health reasons. Summer temperatures rarely rise over 27°C (87°F), and in winter, never fall below 10°C (52°F), with rain falling less than six days a month.
Medical conditions such as tuberculosis and bronchitis were best treated far from the notorious damp fogs of Scotland and London’s smog. Even the respected Lancet medical journal had recommended the island for consumptive patients; “There is no warm country in the world where the irritating influence of wind and dust is so completely absent as in Madeira.”
In 1887, Reid began to plan his dream hotel, commissioning the architect, George Somers Clarke, who designed the original Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo. Apart from superb accommodation, first class service, and cuisine, the hotel was to be surrounded by ten acres of beautiful subtropical gardens in which the guests could walk or rest in the warm sunshine.
Before building began, baskets of rich soil had to be carried up the steep hill of Sao Martinho to create fertile land out of the barren rock into which a colorful array of plants, shrubs, and trees were planted.
William Reid passed away in 1888 before the completion of the building. His two sons, already in business as hotel keepers and wine merchants, oversaw the end of construction with great attention to detail. In November 1891, Reid’s Hotel opened its doors, offering drawing rooms opening onto a verandah, a tennis court, a path down to the rocks, and a sea-level swimming pool. And, of course, the lush gardens where, in the late-1950s, Sir Winston Churchill spent considerable time painting and writing his war memoir.
Orient Express recently took over Reid’s Hotel, renamed it Belmond Reid’s Palace, and refurbished the legendary mansion that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean. Now, the Grand Dame on the Bay of Funchal is enjoying a renaissance.
Basking in the warmth of the subtropical climate, this prominent property recreates the elegance of days past. The service is discreet but omnipresent, respecting the guest’s need for privacy and tranquility. The magnificent exotic gardens surrounding the property overlook the cliff upon which the hotel is perched upon.
Two heated swimming pools, the larger with seawater and the smaller with freshwater at the upper level, and a sea-level pool with direct access to the sea, give guests the choice of swimming in either fresh or salt water.
Having been for over a century the retreat of British politicians, poets, industrialists, and stars of London’s West End, Reid’s is now enjoying a new favor among the entire world’s upper crust. It is no longer the exclusive domain of the stiff-upper-lip crowd that had afternoon tea on the verandah with sandwiches, pastries, and warm scones, accompanied by leaf teas served in classic Wedgwood china.
Men dressed up every evening in white dinner jackets and the women in cocktail gowns. The women sported more diamonds than a jeweler’s window, and they didn’t speak to you unless you were formally introduced – something the General Manager tried to do weekly at the Manager’s Cocktail Reception.
During earlier visits in the 1970s and 1980s, I well remember the very formal dining room that offered British fare. Much of it was thin-sliced roast beef and Yorkshire pudding – appropriate, I guess, for the tastes of the majority of the guests. Currently, on Tuesdays, guests still don their finest and join in a dinner dance, while on Saturdays, the dining room hosts a champagne buffet. But a formal dress code still applies.
Additionally, for excellent food, there is now the Michelin-plate-rated Ristorante Villa Cipriani, where the kitchen creates the mouthwatering regional Italian specialties the Cipriani name invokes. It replaced the informal, non-descript Villa Cliffs Portuguese restaurant that had no actual Portuguese guests any of the nights we dined there.
Les Faunes, the gourmet restaurant, was renamed as William Restaurant. It now has a single Michelin star and serves classic cuisine with Portuguese overtones. I fondly remember the chocolate soufflé served at Les Faunes at the time of our last previous visit as the best soufflé I have ever had.
The Pool Terrace still offers a great buffet breakfast plus an extensive hot and cold lunch buffet, plus dinner every Tuesday from 6pm to 10pm.
A friend from Chicago who recently stayed there commented, “They do everything to make your stay as close to perfect as possible. I mentioned to the receptionist that I felt like a piece of chocolate one night, and before I was at the room, a waiter had delivered two chocolate bars on a silver tray to my door.”
If that isn’t 5-star service, I don’t know what is!
Read our companion story about Madeira.
Manos Angelakis was one of the founders, the former Managing Editor for 25 years, the former Managing Editor Emeritus, and former Senior Food & Wine Writer of LuxuryWeb Magazine. He passed away in 2025 as an accomplished travel writer, photographer, and food and wine critic based in Hackensack, New Jersey. As a travel writer, he wrote extensively about numerous cities and countries. Manos was also certified as a Tuscan Wine Master and traveled to wine-producing areas in order to evaluate firsthand the product of top-rated vineyards. His articles in other publications include Vision Times and Epoch Times.
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