Everyone knows that Carnival takes place in February. But in Rio, the party starts long before then. As early as November, sometimes even the end of October, the public can take part in ensaios, or rehearsals, that Carnival groups and organizations put on all over town.

Composer Pecê Ribeiro is famous for writing songs that spread the glory of Portela, one of Rio’s oldest and most beloved samba schools in the city’s North Zone. But his newest lyrics tell another story. “Bring your little takeout box over here, and I will put a delicious snack in it,” the song begins. “I won’t put too much pepper so it doesn’t burn.” Chorus: “Love, love, gastronomy.”

When you first spot him, he’s opening a bottle of beer behind the counter. Two seconds later, he’s already outside the bar, preparing a table on the sidewalk for a newly arrived customer. You blink your eyes and … there he is, writing up a check and making change. A moment later, he’s asking you if everything’s okay, checking whether your bottle of beer is still full, gently inquiring as to why you haven’t yet ordered that sandwich he knows you love. And if he happens to disappear for a few minutes, you can be certain he’s delivering some beer a few blocks away.

Panettone This sweet bread is originally from Milan, but it’s ubiquitous on the streets of Rio in summery December. It’s lightly sweetened and invites nibbling, as the fluffy loaf can be pulled apart in bite-sized pieces. T

Editor’s note: The year is coming to an end, which means it’s time for us to look back on all the great eating and drinking experiences we had in 2014 and name our favorites among them. Ferro e Farinha We have the Fulbright Program to thank for this newcomer – a one-of-a-kind Rio dining destination. Pizza chef and New Yorker Sei Shiroma had put out a Craigslist ad looking for a roommate, and a Brazilian exchange student studying linguistics answered it. The two went from being roommates to eventually marrying. This gave Shiroma a motive to bring his mobile pizza oven down to Rio, where he gained a devoted Facebook following in spite of the very un-carioca style of dining he was proposing. (Eating with your hands, on the street? The concept does bear some similarity to the cheap drunk food of the podrões – the “rotten” food trucks that dot Rio’s streets late through the night.)

Bar do Seu Candinho is named after its owner, a Portuguese immigrant who settled in Rio’s Port Zone more than 40 years ago. He and his brother, Roberto, who is the cook, built this typical Portuguese botequim (a small bar that serves traditional snacks) in the mid-1960s. At the time, the area was full of workers, and they kept the bar crowded. But the economic crisis that started in the 1970s and continued through the end of the 1990s marginalized the Port Zone and the bar.

In the 1920s, Brazilian artists and writers published the Antropofagia Manifesto. They were unconvinced by the way the Brazilian elite – in a show of low national self-esteem – attempted to deferentially imitate European and U.S. culture. The writers instead proposed a “cultural cannibalism,” a “devouring” of imported cultural expressions that would be chewed up and “reelaborated with autonomy and converted into export products.”

This popular botequim, a small bar that serves traditional snacks and dishes, is not located in the sceniest part of Lapa, but in a quieter neighborhood, Bairro de Fátima, just a five-minute walk from where everything’s happening. Kitschy and a little too brightly lit, Dom Cavalcanti is open almost every day until three in the morning, which makes it an excellent last stop at the end of a night out before heading off to bed. And if it’s been a particularly memorable night out, some canja is most definitely in order.

The second-richest man in the world. A five-foot-two, billboard-topping, belly-dancing bilingual pop singer. A right-wing São Paulo governor, mayor and congressman wanted in the U.S. on charges of money laundering of the multimillion-dollar order. Three presidents of Ecuador and one of Colombia. Together they speak to a hemispheric truism: In Latin America, Lebanese immigrants and their descendants are a force to be reckoned with.

Rio’s small traditional bars, known as botequins, are by definition simple establishments, where orders are usually taken down with pen and paper – and sometimes not taken down at all, but mentally noted. But even in these fuss-free eateries, times they are a-changin’.

Being a vegan would be a lonely business in Brazil if it weren’t for one handy catch – even the beefiest, chicken-heart-gobbling, butter-on-white-bread carioca likes giving his digestive track a day off on occasion. That’s why Jan Carvalho’s veranda-turned Vegana Chácara is popping every weekday at lunchtime. His version of feijoada, the Brazilian national dish, replaces the traditional pork parts that provide the richness in the black bean stew with smoked tofu and shiitake mushrooms. A regular client of his, a musician, jokes that Carvalho’s is the only one he can eat two helpings of and still play soccer afterward. “Eighty percent of my clients are not vegan,” says Carvalho. “They’ll go and eat at a churrasco” – cookout – “afterward.”

Feio, which means “ugly” in Portuguese, is also the fortunate nickname of the owner of one of the most unique bars in Rio. Mr. Feio (his real name is Sebastião) is a former baker who decided 20 years ago to open a botequim, the typical carioca bar. In order to differentiate his establishment from the other botequins in the neighborhood of Méier, Feio decided to serve grilled quail (codorna) – a bird that is not traditional to Brazilian gastronomy. The idea was an immediate local hit.

Very few people know that Copacabana beach, packed to the gills as it is with tourists, restaurants and luxury hotels, is home to an old fishermen’s colony. The fishermen, of course, no longer live there, but they still ply the waters with their tiny boats and use handmade fishnets to bring in the catch every day.

The city has seen a great deal of history unfold over the centuries, and many sites around the city are living proof of the changes it has undergone. The Mercado São José das Artes (San Joseph Art Market) is one of these. Built in the middle of the 17th century, it served for more than 100 years as a senzala, the slave house for the plantation that once dominated this part of the city.

racy Chang tells us what and where she ate when she was in Rio this summer during the World Cup. Chang headed up marketing and communications for Martín Berasategui at his three-star Michelin restaurant in San Sebastián, Spain, and, upon returning to Boston, she co-founded the pop-up Guchi’s Midnight Ramen and served as a teaching fellow with the Harvard Science and Cooking program. She is currently working on opening her own restaurant. Follow her adventures on Twitter and Instagram.