Although there are plenty of bars on Copacabana’s famous Avenida Atlântica – or even at the beach, at the so called quiosques – very few are worth a visit. Many are just tourist traps. Others are much too expensive. No, the really good bars in Copacabana are inland, along Barata Ribeiro street. That road, along with some of the side streets that let onto it, reveals the true face of Copacabana's popular gastronomy. One of the first bars you encounter on Barata Ribeiro is Galeto Sat's. Open seven days a week, always until 5 a.m., the bar is a bohemian temple – but it’s far from being only that. For many cariocas, Sat's serves the best galeto in town. A galeto is a very young chicken (no more than three months old) cooked over a big coal-fired grill.

It might have become one of the more fashionable places in Rio for a caipirinha, yet the simple name of this father-son joint – “Portuguese Kiosk” – suggests humility. Indeed, the pair got their start a decade ago in one of the numerous huts that line the city’s beaches. While the majority of their competitors served the tasty, tried-and-true Rio basics – traditional caipirinhas made with cachaça; beer, and French fries – to sandy-toed beachgoers, Manoel Alves wanted to offer something different.

Editor's Note: This spot is sadly no longer open. Once upon a time, there was a fishmonger. Every morning, he would wake up very early and go to the fish market, buy lots of fish and sell it at his stand in the open-air market near his home.