The first thing you'll notice when you visit Little Brazil Market and Cafe is the aroma of coffee and nutty baked cheese that wafts through the air and cuddles your nose. The atmosphere is soft yet vibrant, with miniature Brazilian flags strung along the windows and paintings of Brazilian towns, colorful parrots, and Pelé mid-back flip on the walls. The centerpiece display? A framed yellow number 10 futebol—that’s “soccer,” for you Americanos—jersey. That was Pelé’s number. Bring the kids, because there’s also a corner with stuffed animals, a toy globe, and children’s books written in Portuguese.
St. Paul's Little Brazil, which opened in 2023 along the Mississippi River, also boasts a market flush with Brazilian staple foods: bags of rice and beans, pouches of a toasted herbal cassava root called farofa, and a brand of ground coffee called Pilão. (This is the only place I buy coffee grounds.) Near the order counter is the cold and freezer section stocked with an array of pork ribs, beef, and chicken products as well as cream cheeses, smoked mozzarella, and cheese meant specifically for grilling. When you’re ready to order, the displays show different types of sandwiches, pastries, and bite-sized cakes.
The whole vibe is warm and inviting—just like Brazilian culture—and the people who work here are very friendly. Don’t worry, you can order in English or Portuguese. Many of the staffers are folks like Jaun, a server who grew up in Colombia and eventually moved to New York, where he worked in a Brazilian restaurant before moving to Minneapolis to be closer to his best friend.
“Basically, I was coming to take coffee with my best friend here and I started talking to the Brazilian team here,” Juan says. Little Brazil owner Charles Spies was impressed with Juan’s Portuguese skills and offered him a job. “Charles gave me the opportunity,” he says.
Spies arrived in the U.S. with his wife in 2017. He grew up in a small town called Itapiranga in the state of Santa Catarina he describes as “a really small German town in the South of Brazil,” and his professional background is in construction.
Like many transplants, he and his wife didn’t choose Minnesota so much as Minnesota chose them: The University of Minnesota invited his wife to work as a PhD researcher. But when they moved to the Twin Cities, Spies felt like something was missing from the food scene.
“In Orlando, you find several Brazilian restaurants, markets,” he says. But in the Twin Cities back in 2017, there were “no places to get daily foods… there were basically no options,” he recalls, outside of a few churrasco or Brazilian barbeque establishments.
“I saw Ethiopian restaurants, Korean restaurants,” Spies says. “The city was used to having cultural food.” He wanted to open a cafe and market selling common Brazilian foods, and years later, Little Brazil opened in a former Caribou where Spies and his wife used to stop for coffee on bike rides along the river.
“Cooking is a passion in my family,” Spies says, and you can taste that passion in items like the coxinhas. Coxinha means “little thigh,” and they look like cone-shaped dumplings, stuffed with pulled chicken and fried to a golden brown ($4.75) or chicken and soft cheese ($5.50). The crispy shell encloses the pulled chicken, simmering in melted cheese, in a thin layer of toasted perfection. It’s not a spicy snack, but it brings the heat.
For a sweet snack there’s bolo de cenoura, or carrot cake. The cake has a soft yet firm yellow-orange center, and the top layer is covered with chocolate icing. One bite coats the palette with a smooth vanilla flavor and faint swells of carrot. Beijinhos ($1.80 each), or “little kisses,” are rolls of coconut and condensed milk, baked, and coated in shredded coconut. A great complement to coffee.
Pão de queijo, or cheese bread, is also fantastic with coffee. They’re toasty, cheesy morsels of tapioca flour, eggs, oil, milk, and either parmesan or mozzarella baked until golden. Like coxinhas, pão de queijo is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Eat them fresh at the cafe for $2.15 each, or you can grab a bag of frozen ones ($14.99) and bake them at home. Either way, you’ll be in Brazilian food heaven.
If you’re game for a hearty meal, Little Brazil serves feijoada, Brazil’s national dish, on Saturdays. This dish is a stew with beans, smoked ribs, sausage, and bacon served with rice and collard greens. “Rice and beans are part of our core in Brazil,” Spies says.
Little Brazil’s mission is to connect the Twin Cities to Brazilian food and connect the Cities’ Brazilian community. According to the Migration Population Institute, the Brazilian population in all of Minnesota is roughly 2,000 people.
Spies says that when they first arrived in Minnesota, the Brazilian community was disconnected, but adds that that’s changing. The community is stronger today and he hopes that Little Brazil can help make an impact with themed events.
“Minnesota is our home, but it’s good to have a connection to where you came from,” he says.
Little Brazil
Address: 230 Spring St., St. Paul
Hours: Tuesday to Thursday 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sunday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Info: @little_brazil_mn
