This Tiny Island Is the ‘Las Vegas of Asia’—and It’s Also a Foodie Paradise

If you’ve heard of Macau at all, it’s probably because of gambling; the casinos in this special administrative region of China, about an hour’s ferry ride from Hong Kong, pull in 25 percent more annual revenue than Las Vegas. But food-focused travelers should also have Macau on their radar. For nearly 500 years, the territory was a colony of Portugal. That legacy led to a mixed-race population known as the Macanese, who created a fusion cuisine of the same name.

One of the most prominent people cooking Macanese cuisine today is Antonieta Fernandes Manhão—a Macau native, Iron Chef Thailand contestant, and author. In March, I visited Macau with Chef Neta, as she’s known, who showed me a side of the territory that didn’t involve a single casino.

Her interest in cooking was inspired by her grandmother, a native speaker of Patuá—a mix of Portuguese, Cantonese, and other languages found along the Portuguese trade routes—who was tasked with feeding a family of 14. 

I met Neta at Universidade de Turismo de Macau (UTM), where she offers a cooking course. “I saw that Macanese food was disappearing,” she told me, describing her motivation to start teaching. In addition to a hotel, Pousada de Mong-Há, the compound is home to two dining outlets. The one we ate in, the casual UTM Café, features Macanese specialties such as minchi, minced pork and beef fried with soy sauce and topped with a fried egg. (This year, Neta published a cookbook, Receita di Casa—with text in Chinese, English, and Portuguese—that contains her recipe for minchi and 18 other dishes.)

One day, Neta and I crossed Macau’s Outer Harbor to Taipa, where La Famiglia serves both Portuguese and Macanese dishes. “I’m trying to re-create the taste that I have in my memories,” said the restaurant’s owner, Florita Alves, who is of mixed Chinese-Portuguese ancestry. It was a great place to try the various savory snacks that form a cha gordo (fat tea), a traditional Macanese feast that includes rissoles (a type of savory pastry), samosas, salt-cod balls, croquettes, and hand pies. 

Originally opened as a gathering place for senior citizens, APOMAC is one of Macanese cooking’s more traditional outposts. “This is homestyle food,” said Neta of the dishes in front of us, such as capella, a meatloaf studded with olives and topped with melted cheese, and xarope de figo, a jelly made with fig leaves. 

Ana Manhão, Neta’s cousin, is the ebullient chef behind Belos Tempos. Manhão, who had a background in Portuguese folk dancing, told me that before opening the restaurant she reached out to Macanese relatives for recipes and feedback. “They knew the tastes. I didn’t. They’d say, ‘Add more vinegar, more turmeric.’ ” Order in advance for specialties such as porco balichão-tamarindo, pork ribs and belly in a sweet-tart funky sauce, or batatada, a dense, moist cake made from potatoes.

“I love that you can find these things here,” Neta said as she led me to our last stop: the lobby of a hospital in Macau. Hidden in plain sight at Centro Hospitalar Conde de São Januário is a café that serves Portuguese and Macanese sweets and snacks such as serradura, layers of pulverized Maria cookies and whipped cream, and pãezinhos recheados, tennis-ball-size rolls stuffed with turmeric-spiced meat.

“We should do a tour, the route of Macanese food. It would stop in Malaysia, Thailand, Japan,” Neta said. Perhaps she was just thinking out loud, but her words left me wondering where I could sign up.

A version of this story first appeared in the September 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline “Mixing It Up.”