Belo Horizonte eats better than any capital in Brazil and knows it: 400 stalls of Canastra cheese and cachaça at the Mercado Central, wood-stove tutu de feijão in Pampulha, and more bars per resident than any other Brazilian city. Three days, eaten properly.
Brazil's most important covered market: 400-plus stalls of Canastra cheese wheels, doce de leite, pork sausage and a cachaça wall of 800-plus labels. Mon–Sat 07:00–18:00, Sun 07:00–13:00. A meia-cura wheel runs R$60–120.
Market restaurant queued since 1978 for fígado com jiló, feijão tropeiro and frango com quiabo cooked to order. Portions serve two comfortably. No reservations — names go on a clipboard and the turnover is fast.
Three floors of 1960s concrete where sewing shops still trade downstairs and the upper decks hold BH's craft-beer and small-plate scene — Cervejaria Cabôco, Bar do Filipin, Nolo. Quiet at 14:30, packed by 18:00 Thursday to Saturday.
Santa Tereza corner bar named for the Milton Nascimento album, with a shaded terrace, a long house cachaça list and the neighbourhood canon: torresmo, linguiça and pastel de angu, the cornmeal pastry found nowhere outside Minas.
Bookshop-café where Savassi eats breakfast: pão de queijo baked hourly, broa de fubá, and coffee from Serra do Cerrado and Sul de Minas growers. Opens 09:00 weekdays, 10:00 Sunday, with jazz on the terrace midweek evenings.
Thatched compound near Pampulha cooking on wood-fired stoves since 1984: costelinha na lata, frango com ora-pro-nóbis, tutu de feijão and a dozen homemade doces on the trolley. Portions feed three. Sunday lunch needs a reservation.
The buffet that codified comida mineira for outsiders: around 40 dishes daily including feijão tropeiro, frango ao molho pardo, lombo de porco and doce de leite served with queijo canastra. One fixed price, serve yourself as often as you like.
Chef Leo Paixão's townhouse in Lourdes rebuilds Minas cooking as a tasting menu — pork jowl with tutu, ora-pro-nóbis, queijo canastra ice cream — with a Brazilian-heavy wine list. Dining room books out two weeks ahead.
Sunday-only market of some 3,000 stalls, and the food aisles are the reason to come: caldo de mocotó, pastel de angu, sanduíche de pernil and sugarcane juice pressed while you wait. Runs 08:00–14:00 along the avenue.
Second floor of the Maletta building, open since 1962 and still the writers' and musicians' canteen: filé à parmegiana, sopa de cebola and cold chopp under bossa-era photographs. Lunch service starts 11:30.
BH's benchmark chopp, poured near-frozen with a two-finger head, alongside the full petiscos canon: torresmo, bolinho de feijoada, pastel de angu and grilled linguiça with cassava. Tables fill from 17:00 on Fridays.
Dead-end street above the Santa Tereza viaduct where the city drinks at golden hour: kiosks and food trucks selling espetinho, pastel and craft beer with the downtown skyline directly behind the railway cutting.