Restaurante Xica da Silva ️ — Restaurant in Região Geográfica Imediata do Recife

Really expensive for what it serves. The service was reeeally slow and not friendly. We were only 3 tables to be served and the staff wasn't busy at all.

First, the juices (that took 30min to be served) were so watered down that you could barely tell the flavor. I hindsight, I should have run away when they arrived at the table, so I could have avoided the "food".

All dishes were way too salty (I'm Brazilian and used to this kind of food and it's not supposed to taste like this). We ordered quenelles, manioc and dry meat balls croquettas and a chicken and rice.

The quenelles are not quenelles, it's just fried smashed vegetables served in a fancy way that doesn't even fit the dish itself.

The manioc croquettas were dry and burnt. They were a mix of manioc and meat, and then fried. It's not "bad" but this IS NOT as it's traditionally done in Brazil (meat surrounded by a thin layer of cooked manioc dough and slightly fried )

And the chicken and rice, I wish I had taken a picture because any self-service will give you much better for the 90 reais it costs. It's simply...

Put simple, not worth the price, even taking into account the island prices.

Atmosphere: 9/10 (you can see it from the outside)

Service: 7/10 (main course arrived together with the starters with no acknowledgment by the waiters; a dish we ordered and they could no longer serve was still in the bill)

Food: 5 (very basic food.. we ordered the Nordestina salad and the vegan Moqueca, both for our disappointment… when I say basic, I mean basic).

That said, this place is clearly popular; there is a queue even in the middle of the week, so people seem to like it or the word about it...

I can honestly tell you that the best meal I ever had was at Xica da Silva. My girlfriend and i were visiting Fernando de Noronha and a local cab driver told us it was his favorite restaurant. We tried it and loved it so much we came 5 times in total.

The best meal of my life? The seafood + toast appetizer + the Picanhas Argentinas + the Cream-filled chocolate cake with ice cream. We tried a lot of things on their menu; not a single miss. It was all spectacular. But that was the best meal of my life, no contest. How this place doesn’t have Michelin Stars is one of the...