Photo © Michael Sommers.
After having spent the summer traveling across the American continent, from Brazil to Brooklyn – and blogging about the experience for The New York Times’ travel section – Frugal Traveler Seth Kugel was back in his adopted hometown of São Paulo last week where he wrote an informative piece on lunching on the cheap in Latin America’s biggest city. For those looking for a decent meal for under R$20 (around $12), Kugel identifies two camps of edible options:
1. Basic, no-frills bars and lanchonetes that serve PFs (prato feitos) i.e. dishes of the day. At their most basic, these usually feature some kind of meat (beef or chicken), rice, feijão (beans), and some attempt at a salad and cost between R$5-R$8 ($3-$5). Depending on your culinary sixth sense, such meals can range from basic nourishment to delicious home-cooked fare prepared with the love of a mother (or father). If there are two of you, or even three, you can opt for the prato comerical, in which the same meal is brought to you on a tray, with each item served in its own dish.
2. Self-service buffets, which come in one-price-fits-all-you-can-eat and “por quilo” (per kilo) versions. Although in North America, all-you-can-eat buffets tend to prize quantity over quality (i.e. after pigging out, you regret it), in Brazil they are generally a bit pricier and a lot better (not to mention healthier). Meanwhile, the por quilo buffets are amazing in that you can eat as much, or as little, of what you want and pay accordingly. Per kilo restaurants are extremely popular and you’ll (thankfully) find them all over Brazil. They range from very basic (and sometimes unappetizing) to banquet-like extravaganzas featuring fine cuisine. Moreover, many places – such as Bahia and Minas Gerais, for example – offer per kilo buffets of regional specialties, which allow you to sample a wide variety of local dishes. Natural food restaurants serving vegetarian and health food also usually operate on a per kilo system.
In general, when I’m traveling around Brazil, I thrive on self-service and per kilo buffets.In general, when I’m traveling around Brazil, I thrive on self-service and per kilo buffets. I love the variety (and the fact that I can pile 20 different mini meals onto my plate), the option of eating exactly the amount I want (in Brazil, aside from chic restaurants, most portions advertised on menus are large enough to feed two), and the affordability. Here are some of my favorites in 5 of Brazil’s biggest cities.
São Paulo – Bio-Alternativa has an amazing vegetarian hot and cold all-you-can-eat buffet for R$22 ($13). Recipes are delicious and creative; for starters, there is a table full of gluten-free breads and crackers with interesting pates and dips, and for dessert, organic ice cream. The restaurant has two locations, but the nicest is the original, occupying a grand old mansion in the leafy residential bairro of Higienópolis.
Rio de Janeiro – Located in the heart of swanky Leblon, Fellini isn’t the cheapest kilo place in town, but it offers one of the most extensive and sophisticated buffets with the likes of foie gras ravioli, honey-lacquered duck, and lobster as well as more mundane options. There are also dishes for vegetarians and diabetics. Beware of weekend crowds.
Belo Horizonte – Hearty Mineiro cuisine is one of the richest culinary experiences you’ll ever have. Dona Lucinha is not the cheapest place to eat – but if you go on an empty stomach, your R$41 ($24) will get you unlimited access to every last delicacy ever dreamed up in Minas including the ambrosial doces at the dessert table. The charmingly rustic restaurant, centrally located in the neighborhood of Savassi, is modeled after a colonial farm house.
Brasília – With a great location – a 10-minute walk from the Eixo Monumental (which is a food and drink desert) – Don’ Durica is a laid-back upstairs restaurant with a nice range of choices – including some very good meat dishes – that provides much-needed sustenance after walking from Niemeyer monument to monument.
Salvador – I’m very lucky to live right around the corner from a terrific kilo restaurant, Saúde Brasil. Located in a beautifully renovated old house, with a wooden deck, in the residential neighborhood of Graça, the healthy dishes are an imaginative blending of local Bahian ingredients and recipes with rarities (for here) such as shiitake mushrooms, fresh snow peas, and radicchio.
