NYCGuide
The 13 Best Brazilian Restaurants In NYC
photo credit: Adam Friedlander
Looking for Brazilian food? Of course you are. It's very likely you're also looking to eat a world record-setting amount of meat. Almost every restaurant on this list has you covered on that front, for any occasion. Whether you want to have a solo meal at one of the many Brazilian buffets in the city, celebrate something with a big group, or just eat a steak in a tropical garden, there’s a place for that.
And if all-you-can-eat meat isn’t your main objective, you’ll also find Brazilian pizza, açai bowls, and a snack counter that specializes in coxinhas on this list. For the best of NYC’s Brazilian food, check out these restaurants.
THE SPOTS
The Brazilian food at this small West Village restaurant is amongst the best in the city, but come here on a warmer day for the full experience. Almost everything that makes this place a good time is outdoors. You’ll run into a curbside caipirinha bar at the entrance, where you can pick up a cachaça drink before heading to the “garden” out back to eat under a sunroof, surrounded by tropical plants. (If you prefer to hang by the bar and people-watch, there’s also a bunch of seating out front.) Start your meal with a basket of stress ball-sized pão de queijo and go from there. Attention to detail—like dendê oil in the moqueca and an extra smoky feijoada—sets the food here apart.
Since Via Brasil opened in 1978, they’ve had to put up with a lot. They’ve watched most of the other Little Brazil businesses in Midtown disappear. Argentina has won three World Cups. But despite all that, Via Brasil seems unfazed. On weekends, there’s live Brazilian jazz, backed by a white grand piano, and on any day, you’ll find servers in suits and ties filling wine glasses and theatrically lifting the lids off steaming mini-cauldrons of feijoada. Use some rice and farofa to soak up the juices from the garlicky picanha steak, and if anyone tells you that’s against the rules, remind them how Argentina got that second World Cup.
photo credit: Neha Talreja
Many of the best Brazilian restaurants in the city are buffet-style, with salads, hot food, and churrasco sold by the pound. They all have their specialties, but Rio Market stands out for its wide selection of Brazilian salads. Attached to a small grocery store, this buffet looks like any other fluorescent-lit hot bar, save for their elaborate salad set-up, which is something we’d expect to see at a tropical wedding. The best way to eat here is to stop by the bbq window to order juicy picanha and linguiça by the pound, then fill your plate with tuna ceviche, hearts of palm, and chicken salad topped with shoestring potatoes while you wait for your meat in the dining area.
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If all-you-can-eat dining experiences remind you of breakfast buffets in Vegas, you might be hesitant to pay $79 for one in Hell’s Kitchen. But replace lukewarm pancakes with glistening ribeyes and bacon-wrapped filet mignons, and you’ll change your tune. For proof, head to Churrascaria Plataforma. Choose the all-you-can-eat rodizio, and a barrage of grilled meats will continue to land at your table as long as you leave your coaster green-side-up. You’ll also have access to the salad and feijoada bars inside this stadium-sized restaurant, but make sure to save space for a couple rounds of the leg of lamb before you flip your coaster to red. It’s salty, juicy, charred and gamey, and it’s the best thing here.
Just two blocks from the N and Q trains in Long Island City, you’ll find a raucous party that happens to come catered with expertly grilled picanha. Whether you go to this spacious restaurant on a Tuesday or a Saturday, the long antique tables start to fill up by 7pm and stay full until closing time at 11pm. With neon blue light, and floral garlands hanging from the ceiling, Beija Flor is a prime spot for birthday or bachelorette celebrations—you’ll hear loud, frequent toasting over the live samba music. The fried red snapper is a good option for sharing, as well as a sizzling steak platter that’s pure asmr.
In an unexpected twist, the pão de queijo is not the unmissable dish at this all-day spot in Astoria. Instead, your focus should be on the burger. Since there are 15 burgers on the very long menu, we’ll specify that it’s the X Brazil that needs to be part of your order. Between multiple layers of juicy picanha, there are pieces of salty linguiça and crispy bacon, as well as cheese, corn, and a fried egg. Split one with a friend, along with the massive, thick-shelled coxinha filled with cheese and chicken, at a table on the streetside patio out front.
photo credit: Neha Talreja
All of the sugar and lime in the caipirinhas at Favela Grill make it so you don’t really notice the heavy pours of cachaça. The cocktails at this Astoria restaurant are excellent, and worth the distinct possibility that you’ll be seeking out some Gatorade about 12 hours later. No matter what you drink here, though, a few things need to be on your table: carne seca covered in sauteed onions, and thick moqueca packed with big pieces of tender fish. Come with a date, and choose your table based on the knowledge that the live bossa nova playing in the corner is quite loud.
TAP NYC wants you to “tap into your wholesome self.” At least that's what it says at the top of the menu. With its bright orange branding and focus on superfoods, this 100% gluten-free, UWS cafe does look like the sort of place you’d find inside a start-up obsessed with self-optimization—but we’re not mad at it. Their açai bowls and gluten-free tapioca crepes are handy meals after a morning workout or a stroll in hot weather. Of course, your health points drop a bit if you get the ones stuffed with nutella or housemade pulled pork and pineapple chutney, but your optimized self deserves a little self-care too.
“You’ll have nobody to blame but yourself.” It’s what your mother might say to you every time you’re in danger of missing a flight, and it’s what you should tell yourself if you don’t get the feijoada at Aroma Brazil. Like all of the ready-to-eat dishes at this Jackson Heights spot, the feijoada is part of a DIY buffet. So if you prefer your feijoada smoky and meaty, you can fill your plate with fatty beef and sausage that snaps when you bite into it, or if you want a lighter version, then bypass the meat for an extra dousing of sweet, acidic broth. Either way, make a pitstop at the churrasco station in the back, and hope that they have beef ribs spinning over the grill.
The original Rice ‘n’ Beans closed in 2021, but the same chef is now running this updated spot in Hell’s Kitchen. The new space has a more modern feel, with exposed brick and Edison bulbs, but the feijoada remains fantastic. It comes packed with bacon, beef, pork ribs, and Portuguese sausage, and it's a non-optional order. To round out your meal, start with some pão de queijo or crispy fried yucca tossed with slivers of smoked sausage. It isn’t tough to get a reservation here, so keep this place in mind for any casual last-minute meals.
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Fogo de Chão is an international chain, where you’ll find a $28 shrimp cocktail served in a massive Midtown space that feels like the set from a Michael Bay-directed Oceans 14. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way—you should go to Fogo de Chão. Specifically, you should go with people who really like meat, and everyone should do the $75 churrasco experience. Once you sit down with a plate of feijoada and sides, round after round of filet mignon, pork and beef picanha, and a dozen other meats will arrive on spits ready to be sliced onto your plate, cooked to whatever doneness you prefer.
Brazilian pizza is a rare find in New York—you’ll have better luck in Newark’s Little Brazil—but Casa Theodoro is a great option in Astoria. They make 13 Brazilian-style options that you can only get as full pies, with thin crusts and toppings favored in São Paulo. For a place that looks like a regular pizza store from the outside, it’s actually a surprisingly warm, intimate meetup spot. There’s a typical slice counter in the back, but they serve bottles of wine at the picnic tables inside, where the lights are low enough for an impromptu weekday date night. If you’ve never had Brazilian pizza before, start with the Portuguesa. It’s topped with hearts of palm, boiled eggs, ham, and a drizzle of requeijão cheese sauce.
photo credit: Petisco Brazuca
You’ll find coxinhas at a lot of Brazilian restaurants, even the formal ones, but these crispy, teardrop-shaped croquettes aren’t exactly white tablecloth food. Hot coxinhas are best enjoyed out on the street, and you should pick some up from Petisco Brazuca the next time you’re strolling through Bed-Stuy. This take-out only snack counter sells coxinhas in cups of six or 10 pieces, with fillings like chicken, spinach, and dulce de leche. Expect to wait about ten minutes for a fresh order.
