Like the classic optical illusion of the faces and the vase, look at Rio and you’ll see two sharply contrasting versions. First is the seemingly easygoing beach city of rubber sandals and gushy greetings as insincere as they are well intentioned. (“Passa lá em casa!” “Come by my home!” The carioca will actually be quite stunned if you show up at his home afterward.) On the other side of the illusion is the Rio that loves formality, titles, certificates and hierarchies. A Rio judge has a decade-long lawsuit against the doorman of his building, who refused to call him “doctor” and “sir,” which recently reached Brazil’s Supreme Court, which declined the case.

Editor's note: To give 2015 a proper send-off, we're taking a look back at all our favorite eating experiences of the year.

It might have become one of the more fashionable places in Rio for a caipirinha, yet the 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, now in his early seventies, wanted to offer something different. He tried importing cheeses from Portugal, his parents’ homeland (hence the venue’s name), but found that the international products went bad too quickly to please health inspectors.