Six hours and more than 30 dishes: Exploring Rio de Janeiro on a food tour

Cancel the coffee and ease up on the eggs Benedict. In a Rio de Janeiro juice bar, Eat Rio tour guide Marcela de Genaro is helping serve up an alternative way to start the day in Brazil.

Mugs of creamy suco de abacate com laranja (avocado with orange juice) team well with pão de queijo (chewy cheese puffs) and coxinha (cone-shaped chicken croquettes), and following a shot each of tart acerola juice, high in vitamin C and also known as Amazon cherry, our compact group of eight curious travellers is definitely primed to follow Marcela on a flavour-packed journey around Cidade Maravilhosa (the Marvellous City).

Next stop is a neighbourhood feira, equal parts farmers' market and low-key morning street party.

Marcela suggests, “Where there is sun, and where there is light, there is always food,” and it's a handy summation of Brazil's diverse and surprising flavours. At a fruit stall, she slices open fresh produce definitely not seen at your local Countdown or New World.

Caju (cashew apples) are zingy, astringent and topped with the fruit's far more familiar nut, while football-sized Palmer mangos – renowned as the world's sweetest and juiciest – definitely don't disappoint.

Any questions along the way – “What's this?” or “Can we try that?” – are promptly answered by Marcela negotiating with stallholders and rejoining the group with plates overflowing with tapiocas – sweet or savory crêpes made with yucca flour – or moist slices of delicious bolo de aipim (sweet cassava cake).

Less than one hour into our five-hour walking tour, I'm already feeling the need to pace myself with the morning's tasty cavalcade of samples.

From the feira in the leafy Glória neighbourhood, we divert north into Lapa, on the edge of Rio's downtown Centro precinct, and a gritty blend of colourful street art and the elegantly faded facades of the city's Parisian-style Beaux-Arts apartments.

Entering one building, Lapa's edgy 21st century modernity is effortlessly stripped away, and it feels like we've been transported northeast across the Atlantic to Lisbon in the 1950s.

First opened in 1903 – albeit in a different address a few doors down – Nova Capela is one of Rio's most traditional Portuguese restaurants. Lawyers, politicians and journalists huddle together discussing Carioca issues in conspiratorial tones, all while enjoying Rio's most relaxed lunch.

Soon our table is also crowded with Portuguese specialties. Formal white-clad waiters dish up cabrito assado (slow-cooked lamb with roast potatoes and broccoli rice) from serving platters, while snacks include bolinhos de bacalhau (salt cod and potato croquettes).

Bottles of cerveja from Sao Paolo's Colorado brewery – including beers flavoured with cassava and honey – relocate the day's lunch from the Iberian Peninsula back to South America.

As we depart Nova Capela, Marcela reckons “leaving here is like being in a time machine,” and we're soon back in the present day at Belmonte, a spacious high-ceilinged bar that's surprisingly busy early on a Thursday afternoon.

An order for eight takeaway caipirinhas – Brazil's signature cocktail made with crushed limes and cachaça (distilled sugarcane spirit) – is fulfilled by a hardworking waiter, and soon our group is back – drinks in hand – negotiating slightly uneven pavements to our next stop.

Visit Labuta's two adjacent locations on either side of Centro's Rua do Senado on a Saturday afternoon, and the entire street is turned into an ad hoc, al fresco party. Today, it's definitely more subdued, and an ideal opportunity for Marcela to ferry a constant stream of Labuta's Brazilian street food to us.

Sitting on folding camping chairs, we're soon teaming caipirinhas and frosty Antarctica beer with fresh oysters from Brazil's Santa Catarina province, torresmo (crispy pork crackling) and oxtail croquettes.

Dessert is the comforting smoothness of pudim de leite, a Brazilian version of a classic crème caramel. By my reckoning, we've already tried almost 30 different foods and drinks, and we're not finished yet.

Loaded into taxis, our mini-convoy continues a few kilometres south to Tacacá do Norte in the upscale neighbourhood of Flamengo.

The house specialty is tacacá, a hearty soup made of cassava, river shrimps and jambu, (a rainforest herb), but we're here to try another Amazonian specialty. Forget the pallid and often watery açaí bowls served in shopping mall food courts across New Zealand.

Tacacá do Norte's more authentic version of the superfood is almost a different dish, fresher, with a greater depth of flavour, and served with an energising hit of guarana. Combined with a digestif-like chaser of a shot of cachaça de jambu, a mouth-numbing Amazonian alcoholic spirit, it's the perfect way to complete a culinary journey around Brazil actually lasting almost six hours.

Eat Rio's daytime tours run from Monday to Saturday and cost R$395 per person (around NZ$130). See:

LATAM Airlines flies five times a week from Auckland to Rio de Janeiro via Santiago. See:

Located right on Rio de Janeiro's famous Ipanema Beach, recommended accommodation is the cosmopolitan surf-style of Hotel Arpoador. Room rates start at around R$900 (around NZ$300). See:

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