Lasai

Excellent cooking

Carrying the flag:With exceptional, vegetable-led dishes from chef Rafael Costa e Silva and warm, welcoming hospitality led by his wife, Malena Cardiel, Lasai has all the ingredients of a standout restaurant. It has featured in Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants every year since its opening a decade ago and achieved the accolade of The Best Restaurant in Brazil 2024. In 2025, it makes its long-awaited debut on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Counter intuitive:In 2022, Lasai moved from its former home in a colonial townhouse in the Botafogo neighbourhood to a much smaller spot just around the corner. It now serves just 10 people around a single, L-shaped chef’s counter, offering a much more intimate experience, with every guest sitting right in front of Costa and his team. On the menu:Fed by two gardens – one in Itahnangá in the city, the other a few hours’ drive away in Rio de Janeiro state – Lasai’s 15-course tasting menu centres around the best seasonal, mostly organic produce, coupled with the freshest local seafood and protein. That might mean chayote squash with romanesco broccoli, borage and juicy scallops, or palm heart with cashew nuts, enoki and king oyster mushrooms and sweet potato leaf. Plating is pared back (in keeping with the room) but stunningly executed. Before each course, guests are shown the fresh produce in the dish and encouraged to smell, touch and taste the raw ingredients. Perfect pairing:Matching with Costa’s food is a drinks pairing featuring biodynamic and natural wines from Lasai’s talented sommelier, Maíra Freire. The list boasts plenty of Brazilian gems including reds from Rio Grande do Sul in the south, vermouths from São Paulo and even a mead made from wild, native honey.