Rotisseria Sírio Libaneza

Great for a quick delicious bite! The fruit smoothie's are to die for. Brazil just always delivers on having the freshest real fruit smoothies.

I had this meat pocket thing, don't even know what it is but it's filling and it's good!

If you want a delicious, economical meal, visit the super popular and highly recommended Rotisseria Sirio Libaneza inside the Largo do Machado shopping center. It's the mall's busiest spot with two entrances, two large signs featuring their menu, and lots of photos of typical dishes. You can enjoy their food as takeout, dine in, or pull up to the counter. We chose the 3rd option and enjoyed two warm koftas de frango(chicken empanadas). The counter includes bottles of lemon juice, Arabian pepper sauce, and molho de ajo(garlic sauce), or in my case, all three.
Tips: practice your Portuguese. All of the workers are monolingual, but I was happy to push myself and get my orders right.( I did make one of the counter clerks laugh when I said não sei.) If you eat at the counter, you'll rub elbows with locals as they enjoy a quick lunch.
Tip 2: no food photos. I didn't get a pic of our meal because I would have been the only person pulling out my phone.

Excelente. A casa existe ha muito tempo e embora o nome e talvez os fundadores eram Sírios um dos atendentes me falou que os donos são Portugueses por 40 anos ou mais. Eu como sempre o cafta que vem com picada de salsinha verde e cubinhos de cebola branca. Os serviços dos caixas e os atendentes é super rápido. Existe alguns mesas na salinha no fundo da casa. Eu recomendo este restaurante para comidas Árabes e sucos, mate etc.

Esfiha is the Portuguese name for Lebanon's fatayir. We tried the meat, veggie, and cheese options and found the meat option to be the tastiest. The veggie is not fully spinach (like you tend to find in Lebanon), but has cabbage and onions. I found it a little too sour and not salty enough. The cheese esfiha is the typical white cheese you find in Brazil.

We also tried two desserts - the halwa, which is a tahini dessert. I found it authentic and delicious. We also tried a small birds nest-like dessert that looked like kunafa but was not. Don't recommend that one - it looked like a cross between a tart and baklava, but was too hard.

This is one of the best Arab restaurants in Rio. Honestly everything I have ordered here is excellent, and I mean it! If it is your first time I recommend the same order of the pictures I have posted (1/2 order of eggplant with meat sauce + half order of kafta) to drink I suggest a 'house mate'. Enjoy!!

Best "esfiha" and "kibe" in town. Great Arabic food, good price, very friendly servers. Came back multiple times during my stay in Rio. Avoid rush hours because the place gets packed (for a reason). Sadly, they don't open on Sundays.

Quite possibly the worst Middle Eastern food I have consumed in my natural life. Steer clear if you have ever eaten North African or ME food in Canada or the United States, let alone Lebanon or Syria. Tabbouleh made with lettuce instead of parsley, no lemon juice or even a drop of oil, tons of some kind of grain (buckwheat maybe), not couscous. Chicken was rubbery and bland. Mango juice was made from fruits that hadn't ripened properly. Servers were quite nice, however, but that's not what I traveled across town for. My friend also enjoyed the meat pie, so that's another plus, I guess.

It is a great traditional place with delicious Arabic specialties. I try to go there at least once a week for its marvelous esfihas or kibes.

AMAZING!!!! Probably the best syrian-lebanese food I've ever had!!! We had all their esfihas, we also took few to go because even when you were full it was hard to say goodbye to those flavours. Pineapple/mint smoothie to die for!!!!

Best mediterranean food in Rio! Good food for a fair price, two things that are rare to be together in Rio.