Ipanema Food and Art Society

I had a serious attack of saudade (part yearning, part happy memory - for something that you will never experience again ) when I ate at the intriguingly named Ipanema Food & Art Society. The food took me back to family-run restaurants with dirt floors in Brazil. Ipanema is not a dirt-floor restaurant: the restaurant has walls of wood panelling beneath white plaster, wooden furniture, white linen.A bonus, as the establishment's name suggests, is some striking art on the walls. But the menu is inspired by honest peasant cooking.I had started with Bobo De Camarao for my Entree which tastes very much like a Vitnamese red curry with prawns and one large prawn unshelled. It was a very tasty dish. Ordering Porco a Pururuca for my main course was a no-brainer: Pork with a crackling and interestingly enough an apricot sauce with real pieces of apricot, roast potato & veg. All dishes round the 13 of my group were pretty and well presented. One friend pointed out that the fish (Peixe Na Telha) didn't look to flash but was extremely flavoursome!The Manageress was extremely professional and quickly sorted out my friends over cooked steak by replacing her whole dish and when she came to pay surprised, her with her wine for free too. She also had an amazing memory and remembered absolutely everything that we all ordered when sorting the bill. I would love to go back to try some other dishes.

We went there again last friday, and it is, no doubt, a great place! great atmosphere!
The staff are very friendly, always engaging a conversation, the food is well prepared, in time, you can "taste" the love they put into cooking it.
Nice range of drinks, their beer is nice as well!
REally love the place and really looking forward to our next visit!

I went to this place on Saturday Evening as it was my friends birthday, Prior to this I read some of the reviews for this place. I came here with low expectations based on the negatives, but decided to try this for myself. I have never been to Brazil. But this atmosphere made me feel like I was in a part of Brazil somewhere.

I would like to say that the staff were great, they did the best they could under busy circumstances, they made conversation. We had reserved a table for 8 people, while waiting for the others to arrive, we drank at the bar and just relaxed. Once everyone arrived we were seated by the waitress. We ordered food, the waitress explained some of the dishes in more detail. Such as Cassava. I ate the duck, and it was quite nice. It was tender, juicy and came with some good flavored vegetables. The presentation of food was great.

Once we ate dinner the dessert menu was given to us. During this time the whole team dimmed the lights and brought out a special bon bon dessert for my friend and sang a song. It was really great! Quite a spectacle. They have their own Ipanema Lager - which is minus 4 degrees. Caipirinha was really nice! I had an Otago Pinot Noir! This was also very yummy and went well with my dinner! Of course I had more than one!

Great Atmosphere! Keep it up!

The only Criticisms I would have for this place is their menu cannot cater for specific requirements. For example they had bacon wrapped around Chicken, my partner did not eat bacon so I asked if this can be removed but unfortunately not possible.

visited Ipanema over the weekend having read mixed reviews of the restaurant but it certainly exceeded my expectations and those of my dining companions.
Ipanema has a great lively setting too - live bands add to the experience. The entrees we shared were great, especially the scallops and the stuffed mushrooms.
My main of the pan fried fish with banana confit provided some really interesting flavours. too and Id recommend.
Worth trying are the cocktails - delicious and worth a visit to Ipanema in their own right. Take my advice - go and try it for yourself and make up your own mind,

Great brazilian restaurant worth visiting, We arrived at Ipanema with another couple mid week and all four of us agreed that it was really good. It's quite noisy and very lively but if you can handle that, then its recommended.
Ipanema is reasonably priced I though, especially given it's location in this part of town.

Got the all-you-can-eat Tapas for 2 special for Ipanema from GroupOn, which was a set tapas menu (order 3 at a time). Like others, I too tried to go through the restaurant door but it wouldn’t open and was signalled behind glass by the waitress to go thru the bar door – a simple sign could have diffused the confusion. Walked in and the staff was great – but the food was crap! On the GroupOn voucherl there are two sittings, a 5pm-7pm or 7pm-9pm, we took the latter. Well it was evident that we were eating the leftovers from the first sitting because the chicken was coming out dry and warm, not hot. The eye fillet was black burnt, chewy and again warm, I really couldn’t believe they were serving us this food. It wasn’t until our final order when we asked for the chicken (which was piping hot, moist and delicious) that we clicked that we were eating the left-overs. I am glad I went to Ipanema Food and Art Society because I will definately NOT be going back to that place!

Love the place, friendly staff, nice Brazilian beers!
We had some bar snacks and beer and was great!
I've been to Brazil before and if you want a taste of what you getting in BR just head to Ipanema!I recommend it big time!

really friendly service last night when my hubby and I dined here. Not too busy but the food was delicious and I think as word spreads, I can only see Ipanema getting busier. My main of the chicken breast wrapped in bacon was really succulent. Overall a good experience and Ipanema is well recommended.