Brazilian food: what to try and where to eat it

At a glance

Dishes and drinks to try

For menu words and how to ask for the bill, see our Portuguese phrases.

Where people eat Brazilian food in Rio

Botecos

A boteco (or botequim) is a simple neighborhood bar: a counter, a few tables, draft beer (chope) and snacks shared by the table, such as pastéis, croquettes and bolinhos. Rio protects its old bars: in September 2026 Riotur counted 52 bars, botequins and restaurants in the Circuito de Botequins with Patrimônio Cultural Carioca status. Their average age is about 73 years, about 24% of their customers come from other cities or countries, and meat and churrasco make up 42.2% of the dishes customers named most.

Churrascarias

A churrascaria serves churrasco. In a rodízio, waiters walk around with meat on skewers and you take the cuts you want, while salads and sides sit on a separate buffet.

Pay-by-weight lunch

At a comida a quilo restaurant you fill your plate from the buffet and pay by weight at the till. It is a quick way to try many dishes at once, and many office workers eat lunch this way.

Beaches

Vendors walk Rio’s beaches with iced mate, lemonade and bags of polvilho biscuits. The pairing is a local habit you will see on every beach. More about the sand and the sea in Rio beaches.

Feira de São Cristóvão

The Centro Luiz Gonzaga de Tradições Nordestinas, known as the Feira de São Cristóvão, has run since 1945 and has about 700 stalls with food, spices and crafts. People go for Northeastern dishes such as baião de dois, sarapatel and carne de sol com aipim. On weekends two stages host forró, xote and baião.

Feijoada

Feijoada is the dish most people think of first. It is black beans stewed with several cuts of pork and beef, served with white rice, farofa (toasted cassava flour), sautéed kale (couve) and orange slices. It is heavy, so locals treat it as a long lunch, not a dinner.

Regional food

Embratur, Brazil’s tourism promotion agency, names moqueca and acarajé as traditional Northeastern dishes and barbecue as the food of the southern states.

Bahia: acarajé and moqueca

Acarajé is made from black-eyed peas (feijão-fradinho) ground into a batter, shaped and fried in dendê palm oil. IPHAN, the federal heritage agency, traces it to the Gulf of Benin in West Africa; it came to Brazil with the knowledge of enslaved Africans. The baianas who sell it from street trays had their craft (Ofício das Baianas de Acarajé) registered in IPHAN’s Livro dos Saberes in 2005. In Salvador you find these stalls all over the city: see our Salvador trip page.

Moqueca is fish or seafood stewed with tomato, onion and coriander, usually in a clay pot; the Bahian version uses dendê.

Minas Gerais: cheese and pão de queijo

Pão de queijo comes from Minas Gerais, made with cassava starch (polvilho), eggs, oil and cheese. On 4 December 2024 UNESCO added the traditional ways of making artisan Minas cheese to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list, the first Brazilian food tradition on that list. If you travel there, Belo Horizonte’s Mercado Central is the place to buy it: see Minas Gerais and Ouro Preto.

South: churrasco and oysters

Churrasco comes from the southern states. Further along the coast, Florianópolis has been a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy since 2014, and UNESCO calls it Brazil’s oyster capital. More in Florianópolis.

North: açaí and the Amazon

In the Amazon, açaí is eaten as part of a meal; in the rest of Brazil it is a sweet bowl with granola and banana. Belém, capital of Pará, joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network for gastronomy in 2015, and UNESCO singles out its historic Ver-o-Peso market. Trips north: Amazon trip.

Drinks

• Caipirinha: Federal Decree 12,709 of 31 October 2025 describes it as a typical Brazilian drink made with cachaça, lime and sugar, at 15% to 36% alcohol.
• Cachaça: under the same decree, a name reserved for sugarcane spirit produced in Brazil, at 38% to 48% alcohol. UNESCO praises Paraty for its cachaça making; the town became a Creative City of Gastronomy in 2017. See Paraty from Rio.
• Guaraná: a soft drink made with the extract of an Amazon fruit.
• Mate: iced on Rio’s beaches, hot (chimarrão) in the South.

The bill and tipping

Many bills show a 10% service charge (taxa de serviço). Law 13,419 of 13 March 2017 treats both what a guest leaves and what the house adds to the bill as tips that belong to the staff, not the business, and sets no fixed percentage. Procon, the consumer protection agency, says paying the 10% is the customer’s choice: you can ask to remove it or leave a different amount. Ask for the bill with “A conta, por favor”. For cards, cash and PIX see money in Brazil.

Water and food hygiene

TravelHealthPro, the UK travel health service, advises care with food and water hygiene in Brazil, because hepatitis A and typhoid spread through contaminated food and water, and recommends boiled, filtered or bottled drinking water. Vaccines and insurance: Brazil health tips.

What to tell us in your request

• Dates and the neighborhood where you stay
• Number of people and children’s ages
• What you want: food walk, cooking class, restaurant bookings
• Allergies and foods you do not eat
• Guide language

How we help

We find a guide who speaks your language for a food walk in Rio: a boteco, a market and beach food, with an explanation of what to order and how to eat it. We book a cooking class with or without a market visit, and we reserve restaurants for your dates, area and diet. For a wider day around the city, see our private tour.