São Paulo hotels and restaurants for high-rollers: top addresses

São Paulo hotels and restaurants for high-rollers: top addresses

chef Alex Atala D.O.M. Hotel Emiliano Hotel Fasano hotel Grand Hyatt Maní restaurant Rio São Paulo Shopping Cidade Jardim Shopping Iguatemi

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By Alexandra Forbes

Although the  bustling city of 19 million has long reigned as Brazil’s gastronomic and shopping meca, for years its restaurants remained an insider’s secret, as tourists preferred the sunnier and more laid-back cities to the North, such as Rio or Salvador. No more: the recent economic boom has drawn attention to the increasingly opulent metropolis boasting world-class restaurants, shops and hotels.

D.O.M. restaurant

RESTAURANTS

For seasoned foodies, no visit to São Paulo is complete without a visit to Maní (www.manimanioca.com.br) and D.O.M. (www.domrestaurante.com.br), restaurants which, in very novel ways, give little-known Brazilian ingredients a new guise.

Just as importantly, paulistanos (as São Paulo natives are referred to) saw their long-lived infatuation with sushi take flight: today, there are an eye-popping 600 Japanese restaurants in town. At the city’s premium Japanese restaurants, dish presentation and raw fish quality rival the best in Japan. Competing for the title of best sushiman in São Paulo are Jun Sakamoto (no website, tel. 55-11-3088-6019) – cerebral, temperamental, traditionalist, owner of the celebrated eponymous restaurant – and Tsuyoshi Murakami, a born showman whose wildly creative and artfully presented tasting menus served at Kinoshita (www.kinoshita.com.br) dazzle locals and tourists alike.

Fasano restaurant

HOTELS

A great luxury hotel is one thing, but one where there are almost always well-known figures of the local business and arts crowds milling around the lobby at happy hour, drink in hand? Only at the Fasano (www.fasano.com.br) , to be sure, the most glamorous of the city’s growing number of five stars. It also holds the title of hotel with the best piano bar (where even big stars like Caetano Veloso have sung) and the poshest Italian restaurant in town (also called Fasano).

Worthiest competitors include the design-driven Emiliano (www.emiliano.com.br), a mere four blocks away – with rooftop pool, spa and helipad – and the Grand Hyatt (http://saopaulo.grand.hyatt.com) , favoured by the business crowd, located in the modern, office-tower-heavy Berrini district.

Shopping Cidade Jardim

BOUTIQUES - SHOPPING

It’s amazing how many new shopping centers pop up each year in the city, such as  the Vila Olímpia, opened in 2010.  The granddaddy of them all, the Shopping Iguatemi (www.iguatemisaopaulo.com.br), is going as strong as ever: it houses the Tiffany flagship and many of Brazil’s most desireable brands, like Carlos Miele and Cris Barros.
But no mall comes close to matching the new Cidade Jardim in sheer refinement and beauty. Its open-air, tastefully-landscaped esplanades are home to some of the world’s chicest brands, including the biggest Louis Vuitton and first Hermès stores in Latin America. Petrossian opened its first boutique there a few months ago. London-based Issa and the American Tory Burch are next. 

Monocle's Tyler Brulé goes gaga for Brazil in his FT column

Monocle's Tyler Brulé goes gaga for Brazil in his FT column

Fasano hotel Monocle Shopping Cidade Jardim Tyler Brulé Wallpaper magazine

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Funny how life is full of coincidences... Take, for example, Tyler Brulé, the very well-known London-based editor-in-chief of Monocle magazine and founder of Wallpaper, where he worked previously. The high-profile newsman listed in his latest Financial Times column the many reasons why Brazil is by far his fave of the BRICs. To name but a few: Trancoso, havaianas flip flops and Bebel Gilberto.

This brought a smile to my face because it served as yet another reminder of how small the world really is. It turns out Tyler, in a previous incarnation, lived in a small Quebec town called Hudson, just West of Montreal, and was friends with one of my oldest childhood friends.

Now I live in Montreal and vacation in Trancoso (in my havaianas...) while mr. globetrotting media magnate Tyler left his Montreal 'burb faaaar behind and is just back from my home turf: São Paulo. So it all connects, in a strange way.

Of course Tyler loves the Fasano hotel (so do his Wallpaper buddies and all minimally cool foreign journalists, for that matter). Of course Tyler was whisked away to the Shopping Cidade Jardim and came away thoroughly impressed. Of course he loves architects-du-jour Marcio Kogan and Isay Weinfeld - so does Wallpaper. Of course it's no coincidence that Weinfeld is the man behind the Fasano hotel that so pleases mr Brulé.


"Much of this has to do with the meticulous planning executed by the hotel’s founder Rogerio Fasano and his architect sparring partner Isay Weinfeld. The former is the man behind one of Brazil’s most respected hospitality powerhouses, and Weinfeld is the man who virtually every Brazilian billionaire wants to commission to build their beach houses and city compounds."

Don't get me wrong: I, too, love the Fasano (and its eponymous restaurant, where I've had family dinners since childhood), the Cidade Jardim (although the boutiques are outrageously expensive), and also the beautifully sleek houses and boutiques designed by Marcio Kogan and Isay Weinfeld. But I just think that it's time that these magazine editors who fly in and out started looking beyond the obvious (or obviously cool) and venturing further, instead of always marching to the same drumbeat. God knows they're in Brazil often enough for that - it's just a matter of willing to do a bit of that ol'fashioned thing called.... reporting.

Here, the link to Tyler Brulé's column about "brand Brazil" in the Financial Times. 

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