The Mercado do Bom Fim is a neighbourhood covered market in the heart of Bom Fim, smaller and less famous than the Mercado Público Central but in many ways more genuinely Porto Alegrense: it serves the neighbourhood's daily shopping needs with fresh produce stalls, a butcher, a fishmonger, and various food counters. On weekend mornings it is the social hub of Bom Fim, drawing the same mix of students, families, and elderly residents who make the neighbourhood what it is.
The pastel counter — fried dough parcels filled with cheese, meat, or shrimp — is the main reason many people detour here specifically. The Bom Fim market does pastéis particularly well: made fresh, fried to order, served hot with a cup of caldo de cana (sugar-cane juice). It is the archetypal Brazilian market snack and hard to improve on. The market also has a good selection of regional food products — gaucho cured meats, cheeses from the Serra Gaúcha, fresh pasta from the Italian-descended producers of the interior — that are harder to find in the more touristy Mercado Público. Saturday mornings are the best time to visit; the market is busiest then but also at its most atmospheric.