Portuguese Restaurants in Rio de Janeiro: Bacalhau & Adegas

Portuguese food is not a theme in Rio — it is the substrate

Visitors are often surprised to find Portuguese restaurants in Rio, as though they were an immigrant curiosity like the Japanese food in Liberdade. They are not. Rio was the capital of the Portuguese empire for a period — the court moved here in 1808 — and Portuguese migration to the city continued in waves right through the twentieth century. The result is that Portuguese cooking is not a foreign cuisine in Rio; it is the layer underneath the local one.

You can see it in things cariocas do not think of as Portuguese at all. The padaria on every corner, with its counter, its pastéis de nata and its standing customers, is a Portuguese institution. The bolinho de bacalhau in every boteco is a Portuguese snack. The word for a grocery-bar, botequim, and the whole counter-service culture that defines Rio drinking, came off the same boats.

What this page is about is the explicit version: the houses that still call themselves Portuguese, cook bacalhau as the centre of the menu, and in several cases have been doing it since the 1950s. They are among the best-value serious meals in the city and they are almost entirely ignored by visitors, who walk past them in Centro on the way to somewhere with a sea view.

Bacalhau: what it is and how to order it

Bacalhau is cod, salted and dried for preservation, then soaked back to life before cooking. It is the defining ingredient of Portuguese cooking and it is the thing a Portuguese house in Rio is judged on. It does not taste like fresh cod, it is not supposed to, and the texture — flaking into thick white petals — is half the point.

The forms you will meet most often: bacalhau à Gomes de Sá, with potato, onion, olives and egg; bacalhau à Brás, shredded with straw potatoes and egg; bacalhau à Zé do Pipo, a baked steak under mashed potato and mayonnaise; bacalhau com natas, baked in cream; and simply grelhado, grilled, with olive oil, garlic and potatoes. If the menu names one of these after the house, order that one.

Then there is the bolinho de bacalhau: a deep-fried croquette of salt cod and potato, the single most democratic food in Rio. It is at every boteco, every botequim, every counter. At the Portuguese houses it is better, and at the best of them it is a reason to come on its own — Bar do Momo in Tijuca built a reputation on a version stuffed with a whole boiled egg, the bolovo.

Beyond cod: polvo (octopus), usually à lagareiro with potatoes and plenty of olive oil; arroz de polvo or arroz de marisco, rice dishes that arrive soupy and are meant to; leitão, suckling pig; and caldo verde, the kale-and-potato soup that is the correct thing to eat on a rainy evening.

Where to find them, by district

Centro and Lapa hold the historic concentration. This is where the adegas and old counters are, and where the lunchtime trade still supports them — the Portuguese houses here are built around office workers, which means excellent weekday lunch and a quieter evening. Rua do Senado, Rua da Carioca and the streets around Praça Tiradentes are the hunting ground. Bar do Adonis, trading since the 1950s, is the reference point most cariocas name first.

Copacabana has the adega tradition in its densest form — small, bright, tiled rooms with a counter at the front and bottles stacked behind, where the correct order is a glass of wine and a plate of something fried. These are not restaurants in the sit-down sense and they are among the most enjoyable rooms in the city.

The Zona Norte — Méier, Tijuca, Vila Isabel — has the neighbourhood institutions, and they are often the best value in Rio for a serious plate of fish. Casa do Bacalhau in Méier, founded in 1979 by a Portuguese family, is the archetype: a specialist house with a dining room and a street counter selling the fritters to passers-by.

Leblon and Ipanema have the formal end. Antiquarius is the famous one, and it is a different proposition entirely — a proper, expensive, old-school Portuguese restaurant of the kind that has largely vanished from Lisbon. Worth it for a specific occasion rather than a casual dinner.

How these rooms actually work

The format catches people out. Many Portuguese houses in Rio are adegas or casas de pasto, which means a standing counter at the front — often the busier and better half — and a dining room behind with waiter service and a slightly higher price. Both are legitimate; the counter is faster, cheaper and more fun, and you will be standing among people doing the same thing on a lunch break.

Portion sizes are the other thing nobody warns you about. A bacalhau dish at a traditional house is frequently sized for two people and priced accordingly, and if you each order one you will have ordered twice as much food as you can eat. Ask: 'dá para dois?' — is it enough for two? The answer is usually yes.

The couvert arrives unbidden: bread, butter, sometimes olives, occasionally a little fish paste. It is charged. You can decline it and should not feel awkward doing so — our scams and bills guide explains the convention, which is a convention rather than a trick.

Wine is where these places quietly excel. The Portuguese list at a Rio adega is better and cheaper than the equivalent anywhere else in the city, and a vinho verde with fried cod on a hot afternoon is one of the great cheap pleasures of Rio. Our wine guide covers what to look for.

The pastry half of the tradition

You cannot separate Portuguese food in Rio from the bakery culture, because the same migration produced both. The pastel de nata — custard tart, blistered on top — is everywhere, and in Rio it is usually called pastel de Belém or pastel de nata interchangeably.

Confeitaria Colombo is the showpiece: an 1894 Belle Époque room in Centro with mirrors, stained glass and a first-floor tea salon, more a monument than a bakery at this point, and worth seeing precisely for that. Go for the room and a coffee rather than expecting the best-value meal in Centro.

Casa Cavé, trading since the nineteenth century a few streets away, is the quieter alternative and the better pastry stop. Manon on Rua do Ouvidor is the working version — a traditional bakery and tea room that locals actually use.

The broader point is that the padaria is the most Portuguese thing in Rio and nobody notices. Standing at a counter with a coffee and a pastry at eight in the morning, paying at a separate till, is a direct inheritance. Our Rio bakeries guide covers that daily version in full.

Fitting it into a trip

The natural way to eat Portuguese food in Rio is as a Centro lunch on a day you are already downtown — after the Real Gabinete Português de Leitura, which is itself the most spectacular Portuguese building in the city, or around a morning at the Museu do Amanhã and Praça Mauá.

Combine it with the architecture. Rio's Portuguese inheritance is visible in the tiles, the shutters and the ironwork across Centro, and a Portuguese lunch after a walk through the old streets makes considerably more sense of both than either does alone.

If you want one meal rather than a theme, make it a weekday lunch at a Centro adega: a glass of vinho verde, bolinhos de bacalhau at the counter, then a shared plate of bacalhau in the dining room. It will cost a fraction of a Leblon dinner and it is closer to how the city actually eats.

And if you only have an evening, the Zona Norte institutions are the better bet than Centro, which empties after office hours. Tijuca and Vila Isabel keep going.