The best restaurants Minas Gerais

The Lua Cheia restaurant is another establishment that offers a good and inexpensive buffet lunch. Vegetarians are welcome here, which is not always the case in this land of farmers and milk producers that gave rise to so much "milk" in the "café au lait republic". There is a lot of greenery and fruit, but the establishment is also known for its churrasco. You can't leave without tasting the famous cheese and goiabada sorbet. An address to remember for big appetites.

Belo Horizonte has the charming Café com Letras, while Diamantina has Espaço B-Livraria & Café. This space is a very pleasant café-library. Here you can find a few snacks, while leafing through books or listening to pleasant music. Tourists, locals and youngsters with a hippy or bobo streak through the place, re-discovering the world over a beer. The mix of food for the mind and body is bound to be appreciated. Some interesting dishes.

Located 100 m from Tiradentes Square, the restaurant operates in the old slave quarters (the senzala, usually located below the master quarters) of an old house from 1772. On the walls hangs a lot of old objects. The restaurant offers a gargantuan buffet for lunch and a very good choice of regional dishes a la carte (feijao tropeiro, chicken ora pro nobis, tutu mineiro). A good address.

For almost 40 years, the Casa do Ouvidor has been located on the "rua direita". In the heart of Ouro Preto, on the first floor of a beautiful building on Direita Street that the owners have completely rebuilt, the elegant house offers a menu with typical dishes (tutu and feijao tropeiro, for two) and other pleasures that are as tasty as they are substantial (filet à la mode de la maison, chicken risotto...) The interior is very cosy. One of the best tables in town! The service is as good as the place.

The Rancho is an almost "historic" restaurant in Mariana. The Petit Futé team has been visiting it for over 15 years. It is a free buffet establishment at low prices. It is certainly a rustic and pleasant table which makes the beautiful part of the mineira kitchen. Many dishes are simmering in the room. Of course, you have to like meat, but there are non-meat dishes that will satisfy vegetarians. The atmosphere is friendly, a pleasant mix between locals and Brazilian tourists passing by. Good home-made cachaças.

Bar do Celso is an institution in Tiradentes. It serves as a bar, snack bar and restaurant. There are good sandwiches to nibble on, very good tutu mineiro and feijao tropeiro and excellent cachaças. For normal appetites, the dishes for one person can easily satisfy two. Of course, it's not necessarily very light, mineira cuisine being by essence caloric, but the smell of the old soapstone pans is not deceiving. Other establishments of the same style are to be discovered on this central square.

100 meters from the church "Matriz de Santo Antonio", this restaurant has been offering for 20 years an original cuisine that is somewhat free from the classicism of the mineiro. Everything is cooked in a wood-fired oven, hence the sweet smell in the air. With a superb view of the surrounding mountains, you can enjoy the grilled pizza or the Norwegian cod, the two specialities of the restaurant. Try the gorgonzola pizza with walnuts and parma ham. The place is quiet, relaxing, at the height of Tiradentes. A very good table!

O Garimpeiro is the restaurant of the Pousada do Garimpo. It offers top-quality regional and international cuisine. Chef Vandecà's reputation extends far beyond the desolate mountains surrounding Diamantina. Everyone will appreciate his typical mineira cuisine. From appetizers to desserts, all guests are converted to the art of mineiro cooking. The typical Ora pro nobis takes on the dimension of haute cuisine. Generosity is also reflected in the portions. One dish for two is enough for 3 or 4 people. Superb views over the valley.

Tiradentes is one of the Slow Cities and the restaurant Viradas do Largo is one of the Slow Food capitals. A gastronomic guide has long named it the best regional cuisine restaurant in the country. This is another excellent address for tasting mineira specialities, with a touch of originality from chef Beth Beltrão, as in the saffron chicken, the succulent suckling pig (to order), or her speciality: the famous Tutu mineiro. The angu fritters(pastéis) are simpler, but no less essential.

The Tragaluz is another starred restaurant in Tiradentes, in an enchanting and romantic setting. It has brought to the mineira cuisine its letters of nobility. The menu, presented as a text of cordel literature, offers dishes that will delight all palates. The basic elements of the regional cuisine are taken as a starting point and the chef revisits them with an international touch. Smoked surumbi with orange sauce, fillet with mushrooms, carrots and grilled bananas. It's certainly not cheap, but it's very interesting and sophisticated without being overdone.

Traditional regional cuisine. A berrante, the twisted horn that stirs up the herds, stirrups, red tomes, isteras (woven tacuara roofs)... It is Minas Gerais itself that decorates this restaurant - an institution of regional gastronomy - run by the courteous Léandro and his team. After the simple traditional salads, you can help yourself to the seventeen fazenda dishes and sixteen tropeiro dishes (the dishes that the gold diggers used to take with them on their way up the mountain) in earthenware containers simmering in a bain-marie.

A gallery of Art and Restaurant, the Relicario has been held for 38 years by the Carioca Firmina, who speaks French. A few jazz notes gironde in this intimate senzala. Pizza from 24 R $, typical dishes from 50 R $ for 2. Taste the milk pig.

Traditional Italian and Italian regional cuisine. This seventeenth century house with fine columns of stone, decorated with posters of French wines, houses an interesting restaurant. Dishes, tasty, have a simple simplicity: trigo, taboo or banana bananas, excellent chicken with onions and fungi, light fish in tomato shirt and sausage sausages. Buffet lunch, flat à la carte dinner. We can take some food. Students appreciate the latter option, good value for money.

La boca do Forna is a group of some famous shops in Belo Horizonte. Lourdes' address is undoubtedly one of the best in the city for salty snacks, but not only that. As in all Brazilian pastry shops, you have to love the cream on the cakes, as the pastry chefs cover them very generously with it. From R$ 5 for a chicken coxinha or a portion of black forest. There are 13 addresses available from this friendly "network" on BH. The appetizers (salgados de festas) are a pleasant way to fill up on lunch.

Nice restaurant in the centre of Catas Altas, with an excellent regional cuisine. Here again, rusticity as we like it. Raw tiles resting on beams built by master carpenters, walls covered in soot, earthenware dishes simmering in a local sauce on a wood stove. "What else? "one might say. The owner, Dona Terezinha, adds that little extra soul to this sincere cuisine.

In a colonial setting, a "buffet" restaurant with a neat and very colourful decoration. Everywhere on the walls are old photos, a wooden telephone booth is enthroned at the entrance. A fountain (chafariz) is indeed enthroned against the wall of the dining room. In a magnificent room with apothecary furniture, a copious buffet of mineira cuisine, simmering on the wooden stove under the watchful eye of the cook, offers excellent regional specialities. A small dose of cachaça is offered as an appetizer.

One of the oldest restaurants in the city and one of the starred restaurants in Tiradentes. One can talk about fusion cuisine, but this venerable house continues to offer classic mineira cuisine. One comes here for traditional Minas dishes but also for more original creations, executed with mastery by the chef Vicente Teixeira, such as the "religious pig" or the "mané sem jaleco". Try the speciality, the pumpkin with dried meat. Some very pleasant tables outside. Good wine list. A very good address.