Best Burgers in Fortaleza: Meireles and Aldeota

The best burgers in Fortaleza are found in Aldeota and Meireles, the upscale districts behind the seafront, in Varjota, a compact grid of streets packed with restaurants and bars, and around Praia de Iracema at night. Praia do Futuro, with its large beach barracas, is more about fried fish and crab than burgers.

Ceará cooks with the flavours of both the sertão and the sea. Inland classics include carne de sol, paçoca (dried beef pounded with cassava flour) and baião de dois, rice and beans cooked together with queijo coalho. On the coast, Thursday night is crab night, a Fortaleza tradition centred on the barracas of Praia do Futuro. A burger here competes with all of that, and the regional touch to look for is griddled queijo coalho or a drizzle of manteiga de garrafa, the bottled clarified butter of the Northeast.

Burgers in Fortaleza: key facts

• Neighbourhoods to explore: Aldeota, Meireles, Varjota and Praia de Iracema.
• Regional ingredients: carne de sol, queijo coalho and manteiga de garrafa.
• Local tradition: crab on Thursday nights at the Praia do Futuro barracas.
• Getting around: Avenida Beira-Mar runs along the seafront from Praia de Iracema to Meireles and Mucuripe.
• Currency: Brazilian real (BRL).

Every guide we publish on Fortaleza is dated and lists only venues, addresses, prices and ratings we could verify. For other cities, browse our burger restaurant guides.