Where to Eat in Boa Viagem, Recife

The upscale district of Boa Viagem is the best place to stay during your visit to Recife, and the area boasts a variety of great restaurants to enjoy.

Ponteio Churrascaria

One of the great joys of eating out in Brazil is the rodízio-style steakhouse, an all-you-can-eat experience where the waiters make constant rounds through the dining room carrying juicy chunks of meat on skewers. Ponteio offers a sumptuous rodízio for an unbelievably good price. The meat is delicious and the service is wonderful, making for a tremendous overall experience.

Bode de Nô

This is a great restaurant to try some traditional cuisine from Brazil’s northeast. They have excellent barbecue platters of steak or goat (bode) and a very good parmegiana (breaded steak cutlet topped with tomato sauce and cheese) as well. If you’re an adventurous eater looking to try an authentic regional dish, one of the house specialties is the buchada de bode, goat offal stuffed inside of a goat stomach, sewn shut, and boiled in a broth with vegetables—effectively a Brazilian haggis. For dessert, don’t miss the Serra das Russas, named for a famous mountain range a couple of hours west of Recife, featuring a tower of ice cream enveloped by brownies.

Restaurante Parraxaxá

This buffet-style restaurant is another good spot for typical northeastern dishes, with the added benefit of being able to try multiple on the same plate. Trust your eye, but you might keep an eye out for the arrumadinho, a Pernambucan classic of carne de sol (sun-dried beef) and black-eyed peas, and anything with cuscuz (couscous), a staple of northeastern cuisine, which differs from its North African origins in that it is made with cornmeal. For dessert, try the cartola, another dish native to Pernambuco of fried bananas topped with cheese and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.

Augusta Padaria Artesanal

This specialty grocery store has a wide array of high-quality imported and domestic products as well as a small cafeteria that serves a delicious breakfast and lunch. They have wonderful croissants, omelets, and eggs Benedicts, but the standouts for me are their incredible sandwiches served on Italian focaccia bread.

Borsoi Café

For a sit-down coffee, this is the best spot in the area. They also have good light breakfast fare, like pão de queijo (Brazilian cheese bread) or small toasts.

Versado Café

This is your spot for coffee to go. Grab some pão de queijo with it as well and walk over to the beach for a real Brazilian breakfast, which they call café da manhã (morning coffee).

Looking for more tips on what to see and do around the city? Visit our Recife page here.