Tio Pepe
Recife
A perfect spot for a weekend lunch with family and friends - hearty meals and cheerful, pleasant surroundings.
If Tio Pepe celebrates anything, it is the cheering, comforting 'taste of home'. Forty-eight years of tradition have produced faithful guests and the unquestionable rule: maximum pleasure with minimum ceremony.
Tio Pepe's jolly, charmingly decorated house is an instant-feel-good destination for the ultimate local feast. Surrounded by welcoming trees and colourful handicrafts, visitors wallow in the perfect weekend lunch: traditional sun-cured beef Carne de Sol with grilled coalho cheese, rice, pumpkin toasted manioc flour farofa, black-eyed beans, fried or boiled cassava and special vinaigrette dressing. A piping hot griddle prevents the Carne de Sol from cooling (as if!) and overwhelms tastebuds with craving and anticipation.
A number of options include excellent seafood appetizers - stuffed crab shells, fried garfish, codfish cakes - and main courses. Toothsome local puddings as Cartola - fried bananas, buttery cheese and cinnamon sugar - and Recife's all-time favourite grilled coalho cheese with molasses are utterly irresistible.
