Rio Gastronomia

Considered Brazil's largest gastronomic festival, Rio Gastronomia has grown since its origins as a newspaper-run restaurant award in 2003 into a major fixture of Rio's cultural calendar. Each edition takes over the Jockey Club Brasileiro in Gávea across three consecutive weekends, Thursday through Sunday, bringing together dozens of the city's most acclaimed restaurants and bars alongside a busy schedule of live music.

A record-breaking recent edition drew over 130,000 visitors across twelve days of programming, who worked their way through hundreds of thousands of dishes from traditional botecos to newer, buzzed-about openings. The festival's 'Prato RG' policy requires every participating venue to offer a dish created specifically for the event, meaning even regulars encounter something new each year. Alongside the food, a farmers' market showcases artisan cheese, cured meats and cachaça from producers across Rio de Janeiro state, and a giant Ferris wheel and children's area round out the atmosphere.

With Rio positioning itself increasingly as a culinary tourism destination beyond its beaches and Carnival reputation, Rio Gastronomia has become one of the clearest expressions of that ambition — a genuinely large-scale showcase of how far the city's dining scene has developed.