Nua Restaurant Funchal

NUA came to us upon opening their restaurant. The concept was strong: an all-day, all-you-can-eat vegetarian brunch built around what the Madeiran season offers. The owners were deep in sourcing and staffing and marketing had been left for later. They had a logo and an Instagram handle. So we became their marketing department: positioning, branding, website & SEO, social media, Google Ads, PR, reputation management and mini launch events. NUA now ranks #1 on Google for "brunch Madeira" and "brunch Funchal", has 100 Google reviews at 4.9/5, and guests have kept coming since opening week.

A premium concept people had to be convinced of

Funchal doesn't lack places to eat breakfast. Visitors pick where to go on their phone, often the night before, from whatever Google and Instagram put in front of them. If you're not there, you don't exist.

NUA had a second problem. Say "vegetarian" and some people hear "less". Say "buffet" and some hear "cheap". NUA is neither: it's generous, carefully made and priced to match. The owners needed people to understand that before they walked in, not after. And they needed it fast. No website, no search visibility, and the restaurant doors were already open.

One agency, one plan, from first search to repeat customers

We built and ran the whole launch: positioning, branding, website, SEO, content, organic social media, Google Ads, PR, reputation management and an opening event, all from one team working to one plan.

We started with who NUA is for. Four audiences mattered most: tourists who travel for experiences, digital nomads looking for a regular spot, the vegatarian and vegan community, and locals who want somewhere a bit special to have a Sunday Brunch. Every message, page and post was written with one of them in mind.

Then we covered every stage of the guest's journey. At the top, PR, Instagram, the newly created Wordpress website and its blog put NUA in front of people who had never heard of it. When someone searched for brunch in Funchal, the website and Google Ads made sure NUA was the first answer. After the visit, reviews did the rest: every happy guest became proof for the next one.

We think that's why the launch worked. The same people wrote the website, the ads and the posts, so the content stayed consistent across all stages of the strategy.

We started with one line: the generous vegetarian all-day breakfast in Funchal. Not "meat-free", not "healthy", not “buffet”. Generous. It tells people what they get rather than what's missing.

We built the brand guidelines around it, with a dark, editorial look for Instagram: near-black backgrounds, a soft pink accent and plenty of space for the food. We organized professional photoshoots at the location that gave us the pictures we needed to showcase the restaurant and food. Then we worked on delivering logo files in every colour variant, developed the print collateral, indoor posters and the Instagram post templates, so NUA was clearly recognizable on very different supports.

NUA had no website and no automated reservation tool. We designed and built one from scratch on WordPress, with direct table booking through Guestplan, in English and Portuguese, around the words people actually type when they're hungry in Madeira.

The blog and the SEO does the long-term work: recipes from the kitchen and local guides to Funchal and Madeira, written to catch travellers while they plan their trip. An SEO keyword strategy and SEO optimized pages to see lift off month-on-month.

We also optimised NUA's Google Business Profile and TripAdvisor listing, because that's where most people decide.

The result: NUA ranks #1 on Google for "brunch Madeira" and "brunch Funchal".

Instagram was where most people saw NUA first, so it had to look like the restaurant felt. We built the content strategy, posting schedule and visual identity, and used the photoshoots content to create posts worth seeing.

The content showed the food, the room and the season, so people knew what to expect before they booked. Our best post reached 4,700 people and brought in 598 new followers on its own.

The result: an Instagram account built from an almost blank profile to 3,274 followers, with around 30,000 views a month.

We launched and managed NUA's local Google Max Ad campaign to catch people at the exact moment they were looking for somewhere to eat brunch in Madeira.

The early data showed us clearly which campaign was bringing people in. So we moved the budget mid-flight to optimize our assets and the underperformer ones were cut to zero.

Through a fully integrated launch strategy, over 2 months, we delivered:

• #1 on Google for "brunch Madeira" and "brunch Funchal".
• 261,000 Google Ads impressions and 8,720 clicks in one month, at €0.09 per click.
• Instagram built from a recently opened profile to 3,274 followers.
• A national magazine feature in NiT and a live TV interview on Madeira Viva.
• A steady flow of guests from opening week onwards.

If you’d like help launching or scaling your restaurant, give us a call!