Come to Brazil

One of my joys in traveling to Brazil, which I did recently for the seventh time, is dining. In general, Latin America is the great underdiscovered frontier for top-tier food. Most of the region is undertouristed, affordable, and not – yet? – obsessed with Instagramming what arrives on the plate. And Brazil is one of the peaks in the region.

With the possible exception of Uruguay and also Kobe, Japan, Brazil has in my not-so-humble opinion the best beef. Of the very finest steak meals I have had, two of the top three were in southern Brazil.

The basics of the Brazilian countryside, and Brazilian agriculture, make such successes possible. Brazil has plenty of space, lots of fertile land, and high agricultural productivity, all combined with relatively short supply chains. That combination means that the foodstuffs are plentiful and fresh.

Most of all, the Brazilian dining achievements are a progress story. Often Brazilian yields in agriculture are approaching those of the United States, or they are occasionally superior, even though Brazil is a much poorer country. Brazil has done a remarkably good job integrating technology into its food sector, though sadly most of the rest of the economy has not followed suit.

Brazil also is a nation of immigrants. Brazil has roughly two million citizens of Japanese origin – there is no exact figure – most of them living in the south. Brazil is thus one of the best places, after Japan itself, to enjoy Japanese food. 

In June this year I patronized an omakase restaurant in São Paulo, Kan Suke, which has been awarded one Michelin star. I had a fifteen-course omakase for $110, with personal service from the head chef. Only eight seats. I reserved a mere half hour in advance, a difficult feat to pull off in comparable restaurants elsewhere. All the other diners seemed to be Brazilian Japanese, which added to the cultural flair of the experience.

Brazil also has about 30 million citizens of Italian descent, the largest such diaspora in the world. I recently had a debate with a very well-traveled Italian friend of mine, from foodie haven Modena, and we concluded that Brazil is the third-best country in the world for Italian food, after Italy itself and then Japan.

If you are into fruit, Brazil has much to offer. A list of some starter options would include acai, cupuaçu, caju (‘cashew apple’), soursop, bacaba, jabuticaba, pitanga, cambuci, pequi, umbu (Brazil plum), mangaba, and others. Nor should you neglect the less exotic items. When I took my daughter to Brazil for the first time, she remarked simply ‘I have never had a banana before.’ A special favorite of mine is hearts of palm (not technically a fruit), which in Brazil have a sweetness and texture reminiscent of sushi.

Brazil, like most large nations, also offers multiple cuisines. For instance you can go to Minas Gerais for pork and beans. Minas beans would be my favorite of what I have sampled, surpassing Mexico. Belem serves cuisine from the Amazon region, including exotic river fish, dried shrimp, duck, and rice, with flavors from cassava, manioc, and the local fruit. You cannot get those dishes in many other places.

Feijoada is of slave origins, and is often associated with Rio de Janeiro, but it has evolved into a national dish, available almost everywhere. Think rice, black beans, collard greens, orange slices, and farofa, a kind of manioc flour, with different parts of the pig mixed in. At home I cook the vegetarian version of this dish. The coolness and sweetness of the orange go well with the sandy texture of the farofa, and the meal hardly costs anything to make.

Rio de Janeiro offers highly cosmopolitan options, and the city has a tradition of excellent French and Continental restaurants.

The best churrascarias I have had were on the outskirts of Curitiba in the south. You can get an excellent pasta meal combined with your choice of many kinds of meat, leading to an impossibly large quantity of food at your disposal. I favored these establishments more in my youth, but if you have never tried them, you are missing something.

Campo Grande, the booming agro-city in central western Brazil, has a derivative form of Okinawan soba (!) as a dining specialty. I regret that, due to a delayed flight connection, I have yet to try this apparent delicacy.

Desserts are very traditionally Western and European. They lack originality but are high in quality and consistent in execution. For chocolate ice cream and gelato, favorites of mine, the country is top tier.

I can’t say I find all of the food in Brazil underrated. You will hear lavish praise for the dishes from the northeast, specifically the heavy coconut milk and palm oil blends, sometimes coming under the name moqueca. I suspect some of these meals are wonderful in the more rural parts of the Northeast, but when I have tried them in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and also Salvador, they struck me as mucky, lacking clarity of flavor, and too heavy to boot. The fault might be mine in the selection of restaurants, but practically speaking I think you have to work hard to get fine food from this regional cuisine.

São Paulo is the dining capital of Brazil, and as a highly commercial, business-oriented city it offers dishes from all the major regions of the country. It also attracts very few tourists. During my four-day trip there I wandered plenty, including to a variety of parks and museums, and I saw only a few people who obviously were foreign tourists. That helps keep an integrity to the dining scene, since most of the restaurants are geared toward regular customers who know local food reputations well.

As for price, the restaurants are not dirt cheap, as you might find in parts of Mexico and Southeast Asia. Still, even in São Paulo they are much less expensive than in New York, Paris, or London, and at the upper end of the market you will find comparably high standards of décor and service. 

Brazil is not a country where you need to resort to street food, unless we are talking sandwiches. The offerings in restaurants are authentic enough, so you do not need to go ‘slumming’ to get the real thing. You may find that either a plus or a minus.

In the meantime, the demands on your time and attention just got more complicated.