Restaurants in Serro

Minas Gerais is perhaps the state which concentrates the largest variety of dishes, since in every region there is a different regional food with local ingredients. Brazilian gastronomy consists of a mixture of local cuisines. With a fresh production of fruit, spices, vegetables, you will see clearly the reason why the food here is tasty and beloved. Minas Gerais' typical local food is called comida mineira and is different from general Brazilian cuisine. Some of the basic ingredients are pork, borecole, beans, and cassava flour.

'Bom dimais da conta!' That's a typical saying when a Minas Gerais inhabitant eats something very tasty and delicious. And that's what people say right after trying some of Serro's typical cuisine.

The Serro Restaurant Guide provides information about local cuisine and popular dishes. We highly recommend you to try some of the excellent and familiar restaurants in Serro. Also check our Serro Shopping Guide which has some useful information on gifts to purchase on while travelling in Brazil. You can find extra information about Brazilian cuisine in our Brazil Restaurant guide as well.

Food & Cuisine in Serro

History

The first moments of Minas Gerais' mining historiography had been marked by tumults, crimes and convulsions, and stuck between these, generalized crises of hunger and food high prices. Formed quickly for the sudden flow of people, the mining gatherings did not have food farming to take care of people's subsistence, since all the attention was turned toward the search of minerals. That created a hard time to the first explorers.

The ones that had the minimum suffer were the Indians, who knew the land where they lived. The blacks were those who suffered more with the scarcity of food. In result of the local situation, the first vestiges of mining culinary had started from the Native and African hands. It can be said that it had a perfect intermeshing between Indians and blacks, who had changed knowledge, habits and ways to prepare food. Slowly, the Portuguese influence started to mark presence in Minas Gerais kitchen and daily habits.

We can also say that Minas Gerais has a typical mining food, different of Brazilian culinary. That's because it is acceptable to recognize a constant in the alimentary preferences of the mining populations. This constant is the trivial and routine culinary, based in the triad: beans, borecole and angu (a typical Brazilian dish generally prepared with corn maize).

Popular Dishes and Ingredients

Feijão Tropeiro is the business card of Serro, inheritance of times when the town was a passage for troops that crossed Minas Gerais. But there is also a rich variety of dishes such as chicken with broth, pork ribs with canjica, beef or chicken with okra, the traditional Feijoada, angu, Tutu Mineiro, pork rib with fern, Orapronóbis with pork rib, sun meat with cassava, iô-iô/iá-iá (meal made with cornmeal, pork and mustard), and several homemade seasonings such as salt, garlic, chili pepper, onion, parsley, chives and annatto.

Historically, wood-fired stoves, wooden spoons and soapstone pots are part of the requirements to prepare Minas Gerias' food, creating a typical kitchen and familiar environment.

Queijo do Serro

Minas Gerais Queijo (cheese) is largely renowned, especially those from Serro’s region. Usually, it comes in three different varieties, popularly called Frescal (fresh cheese), Meia-cura (slightly matured cheese) and Curado (matured cheese). Serro’s traditional cheese is produced from cow's milk according to some ancestral recipes. The best way to mature it is naturally in open air. Check our Serro video explaining all the cheese production process.

During colonial times, the Queijo do Serro became a product largely used in the gold and diamond mining of the region. Since them, Serro is proud to produce the most flavourful and known product from Minas Gerais: the famous artisan Queijo do Serro. In the state it is also identified as Queijo Minas. The reason of the differentiated flavour, comparable to the best ones of the world, is still a mystery. They credited it to the Capim Gordura, an excellent native pasture, today almost disappeared. As it remained the same quality, currently some point to the soil’s composition - calcareous and humid land - and the climate, as the responsible for its tender flavour.

That’s why Queijo do Serro became recognized as a cultural intangible patrimony of Brazil in 2008 by IPHAN, the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Patrimony. And that’s one of the reasons that make Serro a place to experience and taste different flavours.

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