The best Brazilian 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

For the past 40 years, Chef Franca has established his "brotherhood" in this bohemian, bustling district of Rio Vermelho. Many say you come as a customer and leave as a friend. Carne do sol (dried meat), grilled meat with onions, cod fritters, as well as seafood (try octopus with rice or arroz de polvo), fish and chicken. The dishes are numerous and are served in different rooms, including one overlooking Rio Vermelho beach and another decorated in the traditional "casas de Yemanjà" style.

An emblematic establishment in the Barra district, with its sailboat look, the Barravento has reopened its doors after being closed for several years. It has been redecorated and refurbished. People come here to eat seafood, with friends or family of course, but also to enjoy the view of the sea, at the foot of the "Mirante", and perhaps to be seen. You can enjoy an aperitif with a welcome happy hour ("filé aperitivo" at R$59) or try more complete dishes (picanha, moqueca...) in a wide range of prices.

The Zulu bar-restaurant is ideally located on Laranjeiras street, in the heart of Pelourinho. Its reputation is well established. Salads, regional dishes, everything is good value for money. The moqueca (camarao or fish) is top-notch, and one dish is more than enough for two. For lighter snacks, the chicken and mango salad is a real treat for the taste buds. The menu is varied and vegans are not forgotten. Last but not least, on certain evenings you can watch the Olodum youth butacada.

In the heart of Pelourinho, on Maciel de Baixo Street, Uaua has been serving North-Eastern specialties for decades... and that in itself is a guarantee of quality. The décor is reminiscent of the austere lands of the North East. Yet it's a pleasure to come here, because the dishes perfectly convey the sincerity of Nordeste cuisine and its inhabitants. You can of course try the typical Bahian dishes, but specialties like carne do sol or carne verde are excellent, and the manioc fries are like no other.

You can't come to Salvador de Bahia without tasting the traditional acarajés, derived from African culinary traditions. Of course, not everyone likes this red bean fritter fried in palm oil or dendê. If you're curious, don't miss the Dinha stand on largo do Santana. You can usually spot the long queue in front of this stall, where ladies dressed in the traditional white Bahian costume are bustling about, derived from the traditional garb of the lands of the Gulf of Guinea from which their ancestors were uprooted.

Sorriso da Dada is a Salvador tradition. Now it's Dada's daughters who take charge of the restaurant in Pelourinho. The famous chef, a true legend in Salvador (she's on TV and billboards, a bit like choumicha in Morocco, for those in the know), runs her other restaurant, located in her former home (Sabores da Dada). Both are great places to discover Bahian cuisine. The food is deservedly renowned and the atmosphere assured, but get your wallets ready.

In the bohemian district of Rio Vermelho, the Casa de Tereza restaurant has been an institution for many years. Chef Tereza Paim has successfully met the challenge of offering an innovative cuisine that combines art, culture and gastronomy. Local artists are called upon to decorate the restaurant's various lounges, and Bahian culture and its African origins are duly honored. Whether it's a menu from the sea or from the land, everything is created with high-quality ingredients. A successful challenge to "sustainable" cuisine. Worth knowing.

Leila drew on the origins of Bahian food to create her restaurant. The result: African-influenced food and Baiano recôncavo. The air-conditioned main room is reminiscent of a candomblé terreiro. As for the food, lots of shrimp, seafood, peanuts and cashews form the basis of this gourmet cuisine, also inspired by dishes prepared in public markets. For the main course, the choice is between the seafood feijoada, a house specialty, theEfo (of African origin prepared with taioba, a green leaf full of vitamins), the coconut Mariene (Leila's creation), a real favorite of this place.