Gourmet products local specialties and wines Rio De Janeiro

Vero simply means "true" in Italian. This is a real Italian ice-cream parlour, trained in Bologna, which offers excellent home-made sorbets with original and surprising flavours. The lavender and lemon perfumes have the good idea to evoke the scents of the Drôme Provençale and southern Italy, so dear to so many Seyssinians. Well, if you're really hungry, the Vero also offers savoury snacks (including of course pizzas) and a good coffee. All the ice creams and dishes in general are made in the spirit of quality cuisine.

Paraty is a city renowned for its terroir and its stills that provide excellent cachaças. The Empório da Cachaça offers no less than three hundred types of artisanal cachaças , from the state of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, but also from the region of Paraty itself: Coqueiro pingas, Vamos Nessa, Itatinga, Paratiana among others. Many other artisanal gourmet products are also on sale, including colourful bottles of chilli-flavoured oil. Small barrels of cachaça can be a good gift idea.

Confeitaria Colombo, founded in 1894 by Portuguese immigrants, is one of the most beautiful pastry shops in Rio. The Belle Époque architecture evokes the Paris of the Roaring Twenties. The splendid Antwerp crystal mirrors add a subtle Art Deco touch. The Salão Superior dates back to 1922. The lunch and the buffet, served upstairs, are worth the trip. Excellent pastries, including Portuguese pasteis, can be tried at tea time on the first floor near the grand piano. Events are regularly organized (see the website).

The restaurant is located inside the enclosure of the military fort, after the impressive entrance. Annex of the sumptuous Confeitaria Colombo in the city center, it is a favorite address for the incredible view that the terrace offers on the whole Copacabana beach. Ideal for a lazy breakfast, in the shade of the trees and almost feet in the water. The menu, a little expensive maybe, offers a great choice of brunches, sandwiches, pancakes, cakes and pies... Everything is good, but the best is undoubtedly the panorama on the most beautiful bay of the world!

Switzerland and Belgium are not the only chocolate countries. Brazil, the world's largest producer of cocoa pods, is a master in the art of roasting these precious seeds, but it also knows how to transform them into a delicate final product. Chocolate is the local speciality of Penedo, and this small house in the centre of the city invites you to discover how it is made, and of course to taste it, in bars, ice cream or hot chocolate.

A famous ice cream shop in Brazil is called "Alaska"... just like in Montpellier. Here, it is Finland that inspired the name of this ice cream shop. To tell you the truth, we don't know if ice cream (from our dear cones... not from the big frozen lakes that cover a part of the country) is a Finnish speciality, but the ones that this house proposes are delicious. More than 30 different flavours and, above all, all sorts of sweets to decorate the ice cream (nuts, sesame, chocolate chips, etc.).

The Emporio Santo Antonio appears as a magical grocery store for lovers of spices and regional products. Right in the heart of the historic old town, the Emporio is a "delicatessen" offering many local handicrafts: vegetable preserves, doce de leite (a kind of milk-based spread), bananada and goiabada (fruit pastes made from banana and guava), liqueurs, including the famous cachaça. There are always good gift ideas, from local dried fruits to spice oils.

As the name suggests, the Backers is one of the best bakeries in town with a pleasant atmosphere. The Kurt family's Germanic pastry tradition has been delighting taste buds since 1942. Beyond the sandwiches, the excellent breads, we discover a pastry shop that has been delighting Cariocas since 1994. It's great for a midday snack or a late afternoon snack. In a room that can accommodate a hundred guests, you can also eat savory dishes, such as quiches or pizzas.

Rio has a few happy gourmet surprises in store. Gourmands will go without a problem to Casa Cavé, the oldest confeteira in the city. The pastries are sure to delight the taste buds of visitors. It was founded in 1860 by one of our compatriots, Charles Auguste Cavé, who remained its chef until 1922. Since 1860, it has been serving the best ice creams in the center, as well as very good sweets. The period architecture gives the place an old-fashioned atmosphere. Two rooms are adjacent, at numbers 133 and 137 of the street.

It is said often enough, but Brazil is not limited to the production of cocoa pods. Brazilians are masters in the art of making this exquisite sweetness. Like Ouro Preto, Campos do Jordao or Gramado, Petropolis is one of the country's chocolate capitals. The chocolate factory "Patrones" is a local chocolate factory with anAmerican diner look that offers a complete range of temptations to buy on the spot! The whole thing is deliciously kitschy, with teddy bears sitting on the counter.

In some crafts, the art is passed down dynastically from father or mother to daughter or son. Kurt's grandchildren, who also run The Bakers, offer apricot cake, apfel strudel and a curious picada de abelha, a home-made chocolate cake. This patisserie has surely been offering the best desserts in the capital since 1942! The festival of millefeuilles is impressive, as are the macaroons and fruit tarts. The magazines Globo, Veja, or O Fluminense have not been mistaken in awarding it many prizes.

Sorvete Italia is a network of small shops with many addresses in Rio (25, including 3 on Copacabana) and preparing some of the best ice creams and sweet pastries in the city! One of the shops can be found in many places in the southern zone. Of course, you will find the classic flavours of Italian ice-cream parlours, but the originality of Sorvete italia is to offer flavours that are all Brazilian: so the Cuscuz, Tapioca, Açaí or Milho verde flavours will surprise you... or not. To be tested on a hot afternoon after the beach!

The Shopping Rio Sul is almost an institution in the South Zone, which aims to be the most chic in Rio. The Rio Sul has everything a shopping mall should have, a good variety of quality products, good restaurants and cinemas. More than two hundred shops, clubs, gymnastics academies and nurseries. Located just past the tunnel that runs from Copacabana to the city centre, it is the oldest shopping centre in the Zona Sul (45 years old in 2020), but still the largest, and you can find just about anything here.

There are several stills in the region to choose from for tasting good local cachaças. We recommend the Santa Luzia still in Rio das Flores. You can see how cachaça is made from sugar cane, how the still works and how the alcohol matures, in its infinite variations. In moderation, travellers with a passion for stills and traditional production can also visit the beautiful Vieira & Castro still factory, on the road to the Uniao fazenda.

Another magical address that only Rio knows how to offer to the audacious. In a neo-classical French style palace from 1920, worthy of the Thousand and One Nights, Casa Julieta offers the traditional chá da tarde, that is to say tea time the Brazilian way!Fine pastries and quality teas in a unique setting. The pastries and teas are just like the place, refined. What a joy to know that you can enjoy a place that would have been destroyed in 1977 if the town hall had not intervened. A magical place to know for sure.

This cachaçaria offers an impressive collection of cachaças (more than 400 kinds), cigars and local products. The name Cana Caiana is also that of a cachaça from Paraty. Paraty is historically a region of sugar cane and also cachaça. You can taste some varieties in this specialized shop (in moderation of course). The knowledge of the sellers will allow them to advise you according to your tastes. Some cachaças are flavoured with cinnamon, cloves, others are amber and aged in barrels.