Ordering and Customizing Meals in Brazilian Portuguese

Level A2

Ordering and Customizing Meals in Brazilian Portuguese

Learn to read simple menu choices and order food and drinks in Brazilian Portuguese. Practice asking for changes, explaining an allergy or dietary restriction, and requesting the bill politely or casually.

Food and restaurant words

Read these menu choices

Menu item
Cardápio
Sopa
Salada vegetariana
Água

Place an order

Gostaria de pedir softens an order, much like “I'd like to order.” Gostaria is a conditional form; it does not require a respectful pronoun. Você pode anotar is a conversational request to have the server take your order. Você takes third-person singular verb forms and can be neutral or familiar depending on the region and relationship. Pra is a common spoken form of para. Both requests can be polite.

Gostaria de pedir pedido, por favor. / Você pode anotar pedido pra mim?

Ask to leave out an ingredient

Sem comes before the ingredient to leave out: sem leite means “without milk.” O senhor addresses a man respectfully; use a senhora for a woman. Poderia softens the request, like “could.” Você pode is more conversational here. Portuguese does not invert the subject and verb in these questions: você pode keeps the same order as a statement.

O senhor poderia trazer prato sem ingrediente, por favor? / Você pode fazer sem ingrediente?

Choose a replacement

Name the desired option before em vez de and the option being replaced after it. De combines with a in em vez da sopa; disso combines de with isso, meaning “of this/that.” Preferiria is a conditional form that makes the preference tentative. Você pode me trazer is conversational here; me means “to me.” Unlike English questions with can, these Portuguese questions keep the subject before the verb.

Eu preferiria opção desejada em vez de opção substituída. / Você pode me trazer opção desejada em vez de opção substituída?

Explain a food allergy

Tenho alergia a leite is a neutral way to state an allergy, suitable in both formal and casual settings despite the formal label. Não posso tomar leite porque sou alérgico is also neutral rather than inherently informal. Portuguese can omit the subject eu because the verb forms identify the speaker. Use alérgica when describing yourself in the feminine; alérgico is masculine. The noun alergia does not change with the speaker's gender.

Tenho alergia a ingrediente. / Não posso ação de consumir o ingrediente porque sou alérgico.

Explain a dietary restriction

Sou vegetariano is neutral in register despite the formal label; use vegetariana when describing yourself in the feminine. In comida vegetariana, the adjective agrees with the feminine noun comida, regardless of the speaker's gender. Você tem alguma comida vegetariana? uses conversational address here. Unlike English “Do you have…?”, Portuguese needs no equivalent of do: use você tem with question intonation.

Sou vegetariano. / Você tem tipo de comida?

Order and explain an allergy

This dialogue takes place in a respectful service interaction. O senhor explicitly marks respectful address to a man, and gostaria softens the order. Tenho alergia a leite, Podemos fazer a sopa sem leite, E água, por favor, and Claro are neutral expressions that also work in casual conversation; their formal labels describe this scene rather than a special grammatical form. Tem introduces an existence question here, like “Is there…?” in English.

Ask for the bill

With a server, “O senhor pode trazer a conta pra gente, por favor?” uses senhor as a respectful form of address; use senhora for a woman. “Você pode me trazer a conta?” uses você and sounds more casual in this example. English you does not show this distinction, so choose the form to fit the service relationship. Pra is a common spoken form of para; por favor keeps the request polite.

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