Restaurante Vivas is a dependable regional food restaurant in the heart of Praia Grande, popular with both locals and visitors for its generous portions of traditional Maranhão dishes. The moqueca — fish or shrimp stewed in coconut milk and dendê oil — is consistently good, and the arroz de cuxá is made to a proper recipe, not the tourist version.
The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner, and the lunch buffet is excellent value: all the regional classics, fresh seafood dishes, and a selection of salads and vegetables that acknowledges that crab and shrimp aren't the only things worth eating. Service is unhurried, which suits the pace of the historic centre.