The best restaurants Salvador

Pelourinho is full of great places to eat. The Maria Mata Mouro restaurant is a place to discover, an oasis in a busy city center. This restaurant, located in the heart of the Pelourinho, enjoys an excellent reputation that is well deserved. With its inventive, traditional cuisine and mouth-watering dessert cart, it offers a very pleasant setting (in an old building, tastefully decorated and with a pretty little patio ideal for marriage proposals). An excellent address for gourmets, who will be welcomed by multilingual staff. Live music in the evening.

You can't go to Salvador without tasting its acarajés, one of the most emblematic specialties. The "Cira" offers one of the most traditional and famous acarajés of the city. The Bahian Cira has almost 50 years of experience in the preparation of local delicacies. Today, a team of 35 people help her prepare the 5,000 acarajés sold each month. Given the success, her daughter and granddaughter have opened other kiosks, one in Rio Vermelho, undoubtedly the best known, with its queue at weekends, and the other in Lauro Freitas.

For many Soteropolitanos and tourists used to the "Black Rome", this grill is the best churrascaria in Salvador. As in many churrascarias, you'll enjoy the rodízio, a round of 24 different kinds of meat served as much as you like by twirling waiters in a well-regulated ballet, but also the rich buffet of salads, seafood and hot dishes, which offers around 80 options as well as quality sushi. The waiters pass through the dining room, serving quality meat at every turn if you wish.

In the pleasant Carmo district, in the heart of Salvador's historic center, artist Paulo Vaz has opened his studio as a meeting place for his friends. It's like stepping into an old-fashioned café, with an instant feeling of conviviality. The view of the bay from the terrace is magical. The smell of coffee wafts through the place. The menu offers light dishes: salads, sandwiches, quiches, pasta, soups... and plenty of coffees, teas and homemade juices. Friendly cats sleep on the chairs. A good sign!

Le Pelô Bistrô is a very good restaurant serving Brazilian and North-Eastern specialties, inspired by French gastronomy. It also offers international fusion dishes. Set in the flower-filled backyard of the charming Casa do Amarelindo hotel, the service is as good as it gets. In addition to pasta and salad dishes, and traditional Brazilian fare such as the classic moqueca de camarao or bobo de camarao, the menu is refined and regularly renewed. Gourmet" menu for 2 people.

One of the city's most interesting addresses is housed in an old colonial defense building with a majestic entrance. This is the Senac Hotel School, and service is provided by the students of this school, which is very important in Brazil, as it trains many cooks throughout the country. So you can enjoy succulent regional dishes. The large buffet is certainly the best option for tasting Bahian specialities, as it is made up of around 40 typical dishes and you can eat as much as you like. Live entertainment on certain evenings.

Café Gourmet is one of those little neighborhood restaurants that we love, still untouched by mass tourism. A small, attractively priced restaurant in the heart of Pelourinho, still authentic, which has unfortunately become quite rare! The menu is simple, but the dishes are good. The moqueca, typical of Salvador, is appetizing. Meat dishes (filet mignon, "carne do sol") are also well served and renowned for their value for money. During the day, you can come in for a coffee and relax in this typically Bahian atmosphere.

A great classic of French gastronomy in Salvador. "Monsieur Bernard" Goethals set foot in Bahia in 1963 and since then, this very good restaurant has delighted gourmets. Today, another French chef, Laurent Rezette, is at the piano and offers the classics of French cuisine to Soteropolitans. Lamb with port is one of the chef's specialties, and he also prepares dishes mixing French cuisine with local ingredients. The quality remains impeccable and the restaurant is a reference in Salvador.

This former ^17th-century house is certainly a romantic restaurant. Casa da Gamboa specializes in seafood. We'd particularly recommend the tasty moqueca de camarão(they must have something the others don't...), but the menu offers many other interesting dishes. One of the specialties for which diners come from all over the region is undoubtedly the lobster. One of the unmistakable flavors of the house is undoubtedly the quality of the service, the attentiveness and the smile of the team.

The Cuco Bistrô restaurant has been a real success for 10 years and is always full. Just a stone's throw from the São Francisco church, Cuco Bistrô serves fine regional cuisine. The menu features grilled quail with rice, farofa of bananas and aipim purée, or a delicious fillet of beef with red wine sauce. Try the delicious coffee caipirinha. The restaurant's Nordeste-themed decor blends with a cheerful atmosphere. The welcome is warm. An excellent address in Salvador.

This "churrascaria" offers the classic formula of restaurants of this kind: the buffet of starters (plentiful and all you can eat) is followed by a rodízio (merry-go-round) of grilled meats served on their spits by twirling waiters. All you can eat... We recommend not overdoing the starters and reserving the meats, the most noble pieces being served last... Recommended for carnivores with a big appetite. You can enjoy the breeze on the terrace to appreciate the quietness of Salvador de Bahia.

Well, actually, not one, but several restaurants offer their services at the foot of the lighthouse in the eponymous Barra district. It's not necessarily sophisticated cuisine, but you can eat and drink in a pleasant seaside setting, cooler on hot Bahian summer days. Bahian specialties, croque-monsieur, salads, beef or chicken strogonoff or more simply fruit juice, cold beer or caipirinha, you can drop in for lunch or dinner. The place is an interesting alternative to the pelourinho.

A restaurant by the kilo to get to know. The many dishes on offer are of good quality... and there's something for everyone. The "fingers food" is rather classic (cod croquettes, small hamburgers, curry sausages, cheese croquettes), but always tasty. The choice of salads and main courses is admittedly limited, as are the desserts, but they don't disappoint - quite the contrary. Dishes and drinks can be ordered. A good address.

In the heart of the Pelourinho, the Boteco do Pelourinho offers the classic dishes of the many other Pelourinho restaurants, but eating and/or savoring a caipirinha or a fruit juice while admiring the Sao Francisco church, Salvador's architectural jewel, inevitably adds another dimension to these pleasurable menus. Under the yellow umbrellas, you can try acarajés, moqueca and carne do sol nordestine. There are a few pleasant tables inside if you want to escape the hustle and bustle. Simple and very local. Worth knowing.

This restaurant in the Casa do Amarelindo hotel is as good as the place that houses it. The menu offers a fusion cuisine subtly combining Bahian and European cuisine in two variants, a "restaurant" menu and a "gourmet" menu of 3 courses for 2 people. Fans of Bahian dishes will enjoy excellent moquecas but world cuisine is not left out. The black rice risotto is divine, as is the beef bourguignon. Those who are hesitant can try the moqueca risotto. For those who are a little hungry, there are good petiscos.

For once, we're forgetting Afro-Bahian culinary traditions for a closer look at the Mediterranean shores of the Costa Brava. La Taperia, as its name suggests, is a restaurant that honors tapas (including Basque pintxos). The art of service of our Iberian neighbors is not neglected. The long tapas menu certainly makes it difficult to choose, but in the end, you can get lost without risk, as we found everything worthy of interest. Of course, there are also traditional Spanish dishes and sangria. In short, a must in Salvador.

It is one of the most traditional places in the Pelourinho, which has been open for 54 years. You will taste the soil carne (dried meat), feijão tropeiro (typical red beans), farofa (cassava flour)…

Yemanjá has been one of the good Bahian restaurants in Salvador for many years. It offers the great classics of Bahian cuisine with its moquecas of shrimp, fish or crab for two people. There are four different atmospheres: the main room, the bar, the veranda terrace and the annex. Blue and white, in homage to Yemanjá, the goddess of the waters particularly honored in Salvador, predominate. The extensive menu also offers excellent seafood dishes.

A very good option to taste bahianaise cuisine in the area, it is one of the best in Salvador. 

Located opposite the dique do Tororo, a lake in the middle of which seem to float statues of Orixas that have become the city's postcard. Since 1986, the restaurant has built up a solid reputation. You'll find Salvador specialities, but also and above all good sertão cuisine. The atmosphere is convivial. House specialties include carne de sol, leg of lamb and quail. Meat lovers will appreciate it, but the growing number of vegetarians will find good-quality pizzas and manioc purée.