Cozy atmosphere and a lot of style on the main avenue of Pipa. Coffee - Lunch - Dinner
At number 578 on Avenida Baía dos Golfinhos there is a wooden entrance under a pitched roof, a hanging rattan chair to one side and the orange Tamariz sign at the kerb. Inside, the ceiling is made of tied bamboo poles and from it hang cylindrical lamps beaded by hand in red, blue and yellow, above dark wooden tables set with round fibre placemats. This is the restaurant of the Hotel Pipa Atlântico, and it works from breakfast through to the night, with fish, meat and starters built for sharing.
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| Type | Restaurant · breakfast, lunch and dinner |
|---|---|
| Area | Avenida Baía dos Golfinhos, Praia da Pipa |
| Address | Av. Baía dos Golfinhos 578, Tibau do Sul (RN), 59178-000 |
| Located in | Hotel Pipa Atlântico |
| Seating | Bamboo-roofed dining room with its own bar; covered porch onto the avenue |
| Service | Dine in · takeaway · delivery |
| On the menu | Sharing starters · fish · meat · pasta · breakfast |
| Digital menu | QR code on the table |
| Phone | +55 84 99674-0664 |
| Website | tamarizrestaurante.com.br |
| @tamarizrestaurante |
Tamariz covers the whole day: coffee, lunch and dinner, exactly as the house describes itself on its own profile. That changes how you use it. It is not a restaurant you visit once; it is one you walk into three different times.
The starters are built for the middle of the table. Out come thin root-vegetable chips, served in a wicker basket with a small bowl of green dip; bruschettas on toasted bread with cured ham, salami, cheese and green olives; stuffed potatoes baked and gratinated, finished with a sprig of rosemary; and a breaded croquette glazed with red jelly that arrives on the same plate.
Among the cold starters is the fish tartare over avocado, built as a block, scattered with black sesame and set beside toasted bread. It is the most striking plate the house sends out and the one most often shared.
The kitchen works on three fronts. From the sea come pan-seared fish topped with cherry tomatoes and onion, served with a yellow prawn risotto; and prawns lined up over a smooth purée, with a tower of farofa alongside to crumble over the top.
From the grill: filé acebolado, strips of beef sautéed with onion in their own juices, with chips on the side; and filé à parmegiana, the breaded steak under tomato sauce and melted cheese on a nest of spaghetti. Two straightforward classics, properly done.
In the morning the room changes character. Black coffee arrives in a cup and saucer, with a fried egg, a golden omelette folded in half and the house bakery: chocolate cake, a cream tartlet and a pastry dusted with icing sugar. It is the breakfast that starts the day for anyone staying at the hotel, but anyone walking in from the street can sit down to it too.
The bar sits at the back of the room and you spot it from the door: the rack of glasses hanging upside down, bottles lit against the wall and the coffee machine at the end. That is where the evening drinks, the dinner wine and the final espresso come from.
During the day the drink that circulates most is fruit juice in a tall glass, properly cold, which lands before the food. And if you come in the afternoon, coffee is ordered at the table exactly as in the morning: nobody here checks the clock before pouring it.
The first thing you see are the beaded lamps. They are cylinders woven by hand in red, blue and yellow stripes, with fringes of beads dropping from the rim, and there is one above almost every table. They hang from a ceiling of tied bamboo poles carried on black beams, and together they give the room a colour you will not find anywhere else on the avenue.
Tables are dark wood with round orange fibre placemats; chairs are wood and red woven cane. The walls are yellow around the bar and, on the other side, a panel of wavy relief divides the spaces. Glass partitions let you see through to the kitchen and the back room, and plants fill the corners. Daylight comes in from the avenue.
Outside, the entrance is a timber porch with clay tiles, a rattan hanging chair to one side, planted beds and the orange sign on the pavement. It opens straight onto the cobbled street.
Tamariz works all three moments of the day, so the question is not whether it is open but what you are going for. In the morning it is the place for a long coffee and the pastry counter. At midday, lunch with a main course. At night it lights up: the beaded lamps glowing against the bamboo change the room completely, and the entrance reads from across the avenue.
The avenue is the busiest street in Pipa and the movement climbs once the sun is down. For a quiet dinner, go in early; for Pipa wide awake, go in late. A message beforehand is the fastest way to know how the room is looking.
One detail worth keeping: because the house also prepares food to take away and delivers, a rainy evening is solved without going out. And because it serves breakfast, the next day starts in the same place the previous one ended — which, for anyone staying a few nights on the avenue, is the difference between walking and not walking.
It stands at Avenida Baía dos Golfinhos 578, inside the Hotel Pipa Atlântico, on the village's main street. You can walk from anywhere in the centre: the avenue is Pipa's spine and everything hangs off it.
From the door it is a few minutes down to Praia da Pipa, and the avenue takes its name from Baía dos Golfinhos, which lies to the south. Arriving from Natal or from the airport, settle the journey beforehand with the transfer options.
The house also delivers and prepares food to take away, so dinner can finish back at your pousada.
Anyone staying nearby who wants the day solved. Breakfast, lunch and dinner in one place, on the avenue, without taking any transport.
A table that wants to pick before the main course. The starters — chips, bruschettas, stuffed potatoes, tartare — are plated for the middle and easily feed several people at the opening of a meal.
Anyone who wants dinner in a proper room. This is not a table on the pavement: it is a large covered room with its own bar and its own light, and it looks its best after dark.
It does. The house describes itself as coffee, lunch and dinner, and in the morning it sends out coffee, eggs, omelette and its own baking.
No. Tamariz operates inside the Hotel Pipa Atlântico but has its own entrance on Avenida Baía dos Golfinhos and serves anyone walking in.
Yes. As well as the dining room, the house works for takeaway and for home delivery.
There is a stand on the table with a QR code that opens the house's digital menu.
The root chips with green dip, the bruschettas with cured meats and olives, the gratinated stuffed potatoes and the fish tartare with toast: all of them arrive on a plate or in a basket meant for the middle of the table.
Both. From the sea, the seared fish with risotto and the prawns over purée; from the grill, the steak with onions and chips and the parmegiana with spaghetti.
There is. The bar runs along the back of the room, with glasses hanging upside down, bottles lit against the wall and the coffee machine at the end. Drinks, wine and espresso all come from there.
The dining room is covered and the entrance has a tiled porch onto the avenue. You eat under a roof, with the beaded lamps overhead.
The house bakery: chocolate cake, a cream tartlet and an icing-sugar pastry, which appear at breakfast and go alongside the espresso from the bar.
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