Monthly Archives: July 2020

Gajos d’Ouro – New restaurant for Ipanema

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Some positive gastronomic for Rio de Janeiro with the opening in Ipanema on  22 July of Gajos d’Ouro.

The reason for the excitement is that many of the people involved in the project (front of house and in the kitchen) are well known for their time at Antiquarius, considered for decades to be Rio’s top Portuguese restaurant – and generally one of the city’s best – until it closed its doors two years ago.

So as well as familiar faces, diners will also find at Rua Prudente de Moraes, 1008 some familiar and favourite dishes on the menu. For the moment Gajos d’Ouro can handle 30 guests in the main room and 20 in the garden-patio.

The group is also responsible for the bar-restaurant Entre Amigos Gastronomia in Botafogo.

Covid-19 impact on Carnival 2021

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Sadly it is looking increasingly likely that Rio’s carnival in 2021 will be badly disrupted by the impact of Covid-19, including the famous parade of the top samba schools – scheduled for 14 and 15 February – as preparations require people to work in confined spaces and close proximity.

It is also seen as impossible to have the normal crowd of 75,000 plus in place unless a vaccine for Covid-19 is found. The same for the schools to parade as each would have over 3,000 people dancing and performing in close proximity, a total of over 50,000 performers over the two nights.

Until an official decision is taken by LIESA (League of Samba Schools), probably in September 2020, the schools will continued their preparations for carnival 2021, that might even get pushed back to later in 2021.

Viradouro, the current champions, hope that if the carnival parades do go ahead in 2021, it can defend its title with a theme that will focus on the carnival and Rio of 1919, the first carnival after the First World War and  the “Spanish Flu” pandemic of 1918 that killed so many people in Brazil. The samba is “Não há tristeza que possa suportar tanta alegria” (“There is No Sadness That Can Endure So Much Joy”).