Meaípe in Guarapari: where to eat well near Perocão

Guarapari isn’t just shoreline and calm sea — it’s also a full table. About a 10-minute drive from the Argos cabanas in Perocão, Meaípe beach has, over the last few decades, become the most talked-about food hotspot on Espírito Santo’s southern coast: moqueca in a clay pot, coconut pie served good and cold, and a row of restaurants that has stood up to time.

Five minutes by car, a whole neighborhood of flavor

By car or rideshare, the stretch between Perocão and Meaípe’s Beira-Mar takes 10 to 15 minutes along ES-060 — about the same distance as going from the cabanas to downtown Guarapari. The neighborhood packs the highest density of seafood restaurants in the region, many right on the water, with menus built around fresh fish, shrimp, and capixaba moqueca: a lighter take than the Bahian version, with no dendê and no coconut milk in the pot — coconut shows up here another way, in dessert.

Why Meaípe matters if you’re staying in Perocão

Argos Premium Stays runs the Perocão cabanas with a simple argument: real closeness to what makes guests come back. Meaípe is that kind of neighbor — not just a pretty beach, but where the local food scene got professional first, decades before Guarapari became a fully established tourist destination. If you’re in an Argos cabana, this hotspot is minutes away, without having to rely on a trip into downtown.

Meaípe didn’t sell its soul to mass tourism — it just got easier to reach it.

Moqueca, plantain, and the pie that became a calling card

The most-ordered dish in Meaípe is capixaba moqueca, served in the classic clay pot with white rice, pirão, and a little plantain moqueca on the side — a pairing born right there and now copied all over Greater Vitória. Coconut pie is the neighborhood’s other signature: dense, served chilled, the kind of dessert that’s been closing out weekend beach lunches for generations.

Three addresses that sum up the scene

1. Restaurante Gaeta (Av. Beira-Mar, 47) — the oldest place still running on the beach, founded in 1966 by the Gaeta family. A reference for capixaba moqueca and the coconut pie that helped put the area on the map.
2. Cantinho do Curuca (Av. Beira-Mar, 96) — tables facing the sea and a prize-worthy grouper moqueca, endorsed by Meaípe’s longtime regulars.
3. Recanto da Zezé (Av. Beira-Mar, 110) — an order of cassava fritters that’s become the mandatory opener before the main dish.

If you leave the Argos cabanas in Perocão toward Meaípe, you follow ES-060 heading south, without cutting through the heavier traffic of downtown Guarapari — an easy trip by car or rideshare; on foot, the distance isn’t comfortable. For weekends, the sweet spot is to head out by 12 p.m., dodging the lines at the most sought-after addresses on Saturday and Sunday.

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