Minas Gerais

2 Best Bars in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais

"Se não tem mar, vamos pro bar!" ("We haven't got the sea, so we'll go to the bar!") is a mineiro catchphrase that epitomizes the Belo Horizonte lifestyle. No other city in Brazil has as many bars and coffee shops as Belo Horizonte—there are 14,000, or one for every 150 inhabitants.

This isn't a recent trend: the first bar appeared in 1893, four years before the city was founded. The bar culture is the core of the city's nightlife. There's even a contest every year in April, the Comida di Buteco, or Bar Food Contest (www.comidadibuteco.com.br), to reward the bar with the best appetizers (tira-gosto, as the locals say) and the coldest beer.

Pedacinhos do Céu

Caiçara Adelaide Fodor's Choice

Belo Horizonte's best and most authentic live-music venue is Pedacinhos do Céu, literally, "little pieces of heaven." This small bar is known mostly for choro, an instrumental version of samba, for which guitars dominate the sound. Groups of musicians gather here with their cavaquinhos (small four-string guitars), violões (guitars), and flutes for jam sessions that last late into the night. The bar is named after a song by composer Waldir Azevedo (1923–80) and provides access to his archive.

Utópica Marcenaria

Santa Luzia Fodor's Choice

By day a furniture store and an architecture office, this space transforms at night into a venue for jazz, blues, and Brazilian and Cuban rhythms.

Minas Gerais

Minas Gerais

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