Zazá Bistrô Tropical — Restaurant in Região Geográfica Imediata do Rio de Janeiro

A tasty but a bit high paced dinner

-22.985413°, -43.204969° Zazá Bistrô is known for its eclectic fusion cuisine and vibrant ambiance. Inspired by Brazilian and Southeast Asian flavours, the restaurant offers a unique dining experience. There are seats outside along the busy street, at “the bar” overlooking the street, inside and upstairs where guests remove their shoes to sit at low tables with grassy carpets. Highly professional servers speak English and xhef Arthur Cardoso’s creative menu is in English. Because of its listing in the Lonely Planet, tourists and foreigners alike find their way to this bistro in Ipanema and it gets crowded, leading to a less relaxed dining experience. You have to wait for a seat or make a reservation.

In April 2025, we ordered Mignon Filet au Poivre (tenderloin) with baby potatoes, mushrooms, pearl onions, broccoli, chives, farofa and citrus poivre sauce (R$115). Minutes after ordering, our dishes were served. We were surprised and a little sceptical about this pace, but the cutlery was very effective and showed the Mignon was well prepared. It tasted very good, with nice texture and flavours. Very enjoyable. The red house wine Amaterra Carmenère (R$42) was a good pairing.

For dessert, we ordered Angel’s cake with chocolate sablé dough, artisanal hazelnut spread, 54% chocolate cremeux and toasted hazelnuts with milk ice cream (R$45). Dessert was served amazingly quickly. This is a well-oiled restaurant: while serving guests, they do take-aways and deliveries. The cappuccino lacked its Italian roots: probably Nescafé. A sad note to a great, but a bit high paced, dinner.

Overall, the kitchen and restaurant brigades are very effective and efficient. Ordering and serving are streamlined to have a high turnover per seat. But that pace distracts from enjoying their excellent food.

Zazá has a very creative menu, cooks deliciously, the service is very professional, but the fast pace distracts from the overall experience....

The ratings on this restaurant were over-hyped in humble opinion. My group's dining experience wasn't the worst but not great. I dined with a party of 5 and didn't have any reservations, just walked up and waited about 40 minutes to get a table. In between the waiting we had some cocktails to kill the time but the drinks were watered down. Once we were called to our table it wasn't inside but outside on a circle table that was tilted and next to the corner of the busy streets. Our server was nice and kind but quite forgetful. Missed one of our table members orders and they had to wait an extra 15 to 20 mins to get their meal while the others were basically done.

One additional note, for tourists, be careful and always double check your bill. They tried to squeeze in an extra cocktail we never ordered and added a 13% table service charge, hand written without any explanation until we asked to confirm. The server then asked for more tip on top of that even though the service wasn't great and they messed up the orders.

Overall here is my breakdown. Pros: The restaurant is popular and easy to get too. The inside of the restaurant looked pretty. The staff were friendly, some spoke little English. The plants looked beautiful.

Cons: The general food service wasn't great. Slow and very inattentive. The food looks great but tastes bland. The cocktails look great but are watered down. The price per dish and drink is higher here than most restaurants. (Based on the location, it's a tourist hot spot) The seating was not great and other guests waiting to be seated were behind our table chain smoking.

Overall, not the best experience and I wouldn't recommend it but maybe it's better...

Zazá aims for higher quality taste and presentation while trying to give you a memorable experience. This review will be more critical because of that.

They're just short of the mark they're aiming for. You can tell they try to elevate dishes but I can't tell if they're doing that for locals or tourists. For example, the curry adds bananas as a garnish. I've never seen that before, but I liked their taste. However, the curry itself taste off. It wasn't balanced between the spices and the added heat. The cashews in the rice probably should have been added to the curry itself while the mangos didn't add much of anything hiding inside white rice. The fish dish was very attractive but fell flat thanks to the garnishes around the dish. The stringy texture of the greens took away from the quality fish and sauce. A perk that I loved is that you can order a sampler plate of cold or hot appetizers. That's a wonderful menu addition that should be on more menus.

Service is wonderful. I felt welcomed and attended to. Staff speaks English and accepts credit cards. You can sit indoors or outdoors. I'd visit any time but try something new next time. I can tell they want to give you the best they can which I appreciate and respect. I just can't tell who they're...