Bakery cafés in Rio de Janeiro

What to order: pão de queijo, pão na chapa and a média

Pão de queijo goes back to the gold mines near Ouro Preto around 1700, when cooks in Minas Gerais, with no wheat, baked with cassava, a crop the Tupiniquim had shown them; grated cheese joined the recipe in the late 19th century.³ The cassava gives it a crisp crust and a chewy, elastic middle, and in Brazil it is cheap, sold by bakeries, groceries and street stands alike.³

Pão na chapa is a French roll split, buttered and pressed on a griddle, often spread with requeijão (a soft cream cheese) and eaten with milky coffee; it is thought to come from São Paulo.⁴ To drink, a média brings espresso and steamed milk under a thin foam, and a pingado is mostly hot milk with a drop of coffee, served in a glass.⁵

Confeitarias in Centro and Lapa

In the 19th century, Casa Cavé drew customers with ice-cream cups molded as hens, pyramids and baskets of peaches.¹ It is at Rua Sete de Setembro, 133, open Monday to Friday 08:00–18:00 and Saturday 09:00–14:00. Confeitaria Colombo, at Rua Gonçalves Dias, 32, opened an Espaço Memória in 2002 with its old china, photographs, menus and packaging, and also runs a counter in the international departures area at RIOgaleão airport.⁶

Smaller bakeries fill in around them. Café com Afeto, at Rua da Lapa, 161, opens Tuesday to Friday 10:00–19:00 and 10:00–17:00 on Saturday and Sunday. BRAVA Doceria e Café is at Rua Conde de Lages, 44, Delícias do Porto Confeitaria Artesanal at Avenida Marechal Floriano, 133, and Padaria Panificadora e Confeitaria Gran Rio at Praça João Pessoa, 7.

Bakery cafés in the South Zone

In Copacabana, Crum’s Confeitaria e Cafeteria is at Rua Dias da Rocha, 20, Pepo Café on Rua Barão de Ipanema opens Tuesday to Saturday 08:00–20:00 and serves brunch, and Galleria Café & Bistrô on Rua Barata Ribeiro stays open until 22:20 Monday to Thursday and Saturday. Cake & Co., in Botafogo at Rua Conde de Irajá, 132, is smoke-free and opens every day. Flamengo has Mimo Café on Rua Senador Vergueiro, Le Deux at Travessa dos Tamoios, 40, and Santo Favo at Rua Artur Bernardes, 226.

Confeitaria Kurt, at Rua General Urquiza, 117 in Leblon, was started in the 1940s by Kurt Deichmann, a German who had fled the war, and sells palmiers and spekulatius among its biscuits.⁷ On the Lagoa side, Confeitaria Santa Marta is at Rua Fonte da Saudade, 241.

Tijuca, and what a bakery coffee costs

In the North Zone, Nico’s Café e Confeitaria is at Rua Barão de Mesquita, 444, and Casa do bolo de pão de queijo sells cakes and cheese bread at Boulevard 28 de Setembro, 178A, in Vila Isabel. Dianna Bakery, at Rua Dona Delfina, 14 in Tijuca, priced a café coado (filter coffee) at R$13 and a café com leite at R$14 in April 2026, and the Porto do Sabor chain’s paçoquita, coffee blended with paçoca (peanut candy), cost R$13.90.⁸