How We Spent 4 Days in São Paulo, Brazil

How we got there…

As predictable as always, we flew British Airways from Manchester to London Heathrow then on to Rio de Janeiro.

Once again we were using a companion voucher that we had earned via the British Airways American Express card.  This was one of the new British Airways American Express Premium Plus Companion Voucher, which apparently gives far more availability.

At the time of booking, we hadn’t decided on our plans.  Quite frequently we don’t plan far enough a head and then we have a panic trying to use the companion voucher in the best possible way.  2024 is also the year that we are planning multiple tier point runs so our efforts had been spent trying to plan those.

On the weekend that we chose to look at booking something with the companion voucher, the British Airways website went down multiple times for lengthy periods. We were not sure if this in someway was caused by some of the convoluted journeys we were trying to plan.  This did not help with our searching.  Anyway by the end of the weekend after much “toing” and “froing” we settled on flying to Rio.  Once that was booked we then started to build out the itinerary.

This is when we decided that we were going to go to São Paulo first, followed by a couple of days in Montevideo, then to Buenos Aires and finally finish our last four nights back in Rio.

We did look at changing to fly directly to São Paulo but even with this “premium” voucher there were no reward seats available.  So we kept to our plan of flying to Rio and going on from there.

At Manchester airport, we made use of the Escape Lounge.  This is marginally better than staying in the main departure lounge.  At least you get a good view of the runway (if you are lucky enough to bag a window seat) and a free drink.  On this occasion, there were also some fairly decent egg mayonnaise sandwiches.

Our flight to Heathrow went smoothly and we had a lovely Cabin Service Director called Peter.

Once at Heathrow, we went to the First Lounge and then on to the lounge at the B Gate.  Both were extremely disappointing experiences. In the first lounge, the decor has been “upgraded”.  This meant it was even harder to find a seat and finding one with a working charging point was even harder.  The food in both lounges was dreadful and left us no choice but to rely on the food onboard the flight. 

Here is what we found in the B Lounge:

By the time we made it to the flight, boarding had commenced and our fellow passengers had kindly filled the overhead bins above our seats! This led to me having a bit of a strop but the cabin crew managed to find some space for us.

Here were the food menus:

The main course was also awful. I chose the Grilled North Atlantic Cod. This came with Bombay Potatoes, Five Spiced Broccoli, Wilted Spinach and Black Pepper Infused Tomato and Coconut Sauce. I ended up eating a few potatoes (the fish was so dry) and a chocolate, walnut and orange cake (not together).

The cake was actually reasonably good. It had a high walnut ratio and a substantial amount of chocolate sauce.

After landing we went through immigration and baggage reclaim without any bother. 

 The British Airways flight that we left also went on to Buenos Aires after landing in Rio.  We had during our travel planning considered doing this.  On arrival at Rio, I was now glad we hadn’t decided to carry on to Buenos Aires.  Those passengers that were staying on had to wait at Rio for another one and half hours before continuing for another three hours.

Before going back through the baggage drop and security, we made our way to the Plaza Premium arrivals lounge to freshen up.  Entry to this lounge was via our AMEX Platinum credit cards. Strangely located in the airport car park. From what we had read on the internet, the lounge was meant to have showers. Not sure if it was the language barrier or not, but apparently there were no showers that day.  The lounge was fairly basic so we had a pit stop and then continued on.

We found the bag drop and security at Rio for our onward connection to São Paulo. This time we were flying LATAM. We went to the Plaza Premium lounge in domestic departures. By this point after an 11 hour flight I think we were quite spaced out and I don’t remember much about either the lounge or the flight.

Where we stayed..

With our American Express Platinum, one of the benefits is that we get 20% of three stays at a Melia Hotel per year plus we are meant to be “Gold” status. We chose to stay in the Melia Jardim Europa, a “five” star hotel.

The area that the hotel was located in Itaim Bibi, was residential and very civilised. The main areas in the hotel were modern and appealing.

Our room though was pretty dated as the following videos show.

On the floor above our room, there was construction happening during the day. Having arrived around lunchtime after many hours of travelling, we were then subjected to building work noise.

When I phoned reception they offered to move us to the other end of the floor but we were exhausted and had already unpacked.

There was also a double whammy of construction outside our room, we were on the 5th floor so it was extremely loud. The windows were not double glazed. At this point I was wondering whether the hotel cared about our “Gold”status.

Other downsides of this “5 Star” hotel were a tiny balcony and no ice machines.

On the positive side the shower was powerful but had a tiny cubicle where the door gave you a hard shove when reaching for a towel.

On return from our evening meal on our first night, we were presented with one little cake due to being “Gold” .

Yes the plate it arrived on was really that grubby. It didn’t get eaten!

Some other good points, we did get free breakfast for being Gold members. There was also a good sized gym with views fabulous views over the city on 25th floor.

All in all I felt that the Melia Jardim Europa could absolutely do better!

What we did and what we ate…

To create an itinerary, I have now found the brilliant Google My Maps. Before going away I am now able to create daily itineraries. Here is the updated version of what we did each day and the things we didn’t get round to doing.

One thing to note about getting around São Paulo, it’s a big city. We were staying in the South and to go to Downtown was at least 25-30 minutes in a taxi. There is always a lot of traffic!

Z Deli – Itaim Bibi, São Paulo

Z Deli was our saviour for our first night in São Paulo. We were tired from all our travelling so wanted to stay local and have something fairly casual. I found this place during my research before we started the trip in the Lonely Planet Brazil Travel Guide.

This hip “sandwich” bar was about a 15 minute walk from our hotel. I say “sandwich” bar because it was way more than that. Everything I read about the place suggested that the burgers were the thing to go for.

First up from the “snacks, appetizers, and salads”, we ordered the ZFC.

This was an extremely generous portion of marinated and deep-fried pieces of chicken. The chicken was succulent with a soft but crispy batter. It came garnished with gherkin (great idea!) and a sour cream dipping sauce, which I originally thought was mild cheese.

We didn’t order the burger as we had plans for visiting somewhere else later in the week. Instead we opted for the sandwiches.

This first photograph is of the Pastrami sandwich. This was wonderfully rare hunks of pastrami with a lovely amount of pepper. It was served a milk roll with a strong mustard and mayonnaise mixed with gherkins. On the side of the plate was a pickle. One of the most perfect pastrami sandwiches that I have ever tried.

Our second choice in sandwich was the Reuben. This was presented on toasted rye bread. Filled again with the pastrami accompanied with cheese, a special sauce, hot mustard and sauerkraut.

Not that we needed them but we also couldn’t resist ordering some Z Deli fries. This variety were skin on with fresh rosemary. This was also a substantial portion.

To go with all of this we had two of the Brooklyn IPA beers, which were a perfect pairing.

We thoroughly enjoyed the whole meal!

Mercado Municipal de São Paulo

On Day 2, we decided to venture uptown to Downtown São Paulo and specifically to Mercado Municipal de São Paulo. After visiting such places as Queen Victoria Market (Melbourne), St Lawrence Market (Toronto) and Borough Market (London), expectations were high.

Unfortunately this market was not a patch on them. Downtown São Paulo, reminded me of the worst parts Havana. It was very “gritty”!

The market seemed to be made up of mainly fruit sellers, fishmongers and butchers but with little variety of produce. On top of this there were many places selling Brazilian sandwiches but again the selection of food was limited. Upon entering the market, one is immediately accosted by pushy vendors vying for the attention of anyone. This means you don’t stand a chance of wandering and browsing the market and your only option is to make a swift exit.

Japantown – Liberdade

After the market, we decided to head on to Japantown in the district of Liberdade. Before our trip we had heard amazing things about this area.

However, this really wasn’t turning out to be our best day ever. I ordered an Uber to get us from the market to Japantown. When selecting the place to be dropped off at I just chose Liberade, thinking we would go to the heart of Japantown. As we approached the drop off point, having passed what definitely did look like the heart of Japantown, we were met with a sea of tents occupied by the homeless.

Our Uber driver, seemed to think nothing of it and was happy to evict us there and then. We hastily exited and made our way back to Japantown. Our nervousness stemmed from reading about how careful tourists need to be in Brazil. I’m sure we would have been fine in broad daylight but it wasn’t worth the risk.

We had hoped that Japantown would have been filled with restaurants selling Gyoza and that we would easily find somewhere to stop for lunch. However, we struggled to find anything that was appealing. I’m glad we went but after about an hour of strolling we decided to head back South to explore the area nearer our hotel.

Eataly – Itaim Bibi

After an unsuccessful start to the day, we headed to the safety of Eataly. We have previously visited this Italian food market in a number of other cities including Toronto and Los Angeles, which have been the best ones.

The Eataly in São Paulo was similar to the one we visited in London in format. There was no fresh fruit, vegetables, meat or fresh pasta sauce. It did have a good selection of bread products, fresh pasta and ice cream!

Here were a few things that caught our eye…

We did try the ice cream and it was creamy and refreshing. The ladies serving couldn’t speak any English but were so nice and offered for us to try as many flavours as we wished. We ended up ordering the “baby” size, which was a decent portion with two scoops.

My husband had vanilla and strawberry, which had a thick fruity sauce woven through it.

True to form, I went for a nutty and caramel combination of almond and dulce de leche.

Street Art in Itaim Bibi

On the way back to the hotel, as we wondered through Itaim Bibi. Much to my delight we happened to stumble on a few street murals! The day was improving somewhat.

A Fornada Padaria – Itaim Bibi

Pizzas at A Fornada Padaria

On the second night, we found A Fornada Padaria. This was not originally part of our itinerary. But having by this point realised the scale of São Paulo, we wanted to stay close to the hotel. It is badged as a bakery but was so much more.

It was a lovely warm evening and we opted to sit outside. Again we were faced with being served by a waiter that didn’t speak any English. This made ordering interesting but also fun. This was especially so for the wine, as they didn’t have the one we wanted. It resulted in us being presented with the actual bottles of the ones that they did have.

Once the wine was chosen, we ordered the pizza.

The pizza base was thin and crispy and reminded us of when my husband first started making pizza. 

Both our pizzas were thoroughly topped.  We shared the following:

Calbrese – topped with mozzarella, sausage, onions and olives.

Caprese – Basil Pesto, Buffalo Mozzarella and Cherry Tomatoes

It was an extremely filling meal and we were definitely cheesed out by the end.

Throughout our whole experience, the young lady who served us, overcame the language barrier and remained so helpful and pleasant. At the end she was overjoyed with tip!

Pastries from A Fornada Padaria

Having spied the pastries through the window the previous evening, we had to return the next day.

The selection available was magnificent.

We purchased two of them to take for a picnic in Parque Ibirapuera.

This first one was badged as a Danish. It was not a Danish as I have ever known but it was fantastic. It was speckled throughout with tiny delicious particles of chocolate with softest croissant like dough without flakiness.

Along with this we had an almond croissant. This was filled with sweet nutty almond cream and topped with an abundance of sugar dusted almonds. 

I dread to think how many calories I consumed!

The Parque Ibirapuera

Parque Ibiraquera is definitely the jewel of São Paulo. It’s an urban park between Av. República do Líbano, Av. Pedro Alvares Cabral, and Av. IV Centenário. It’s filled with everything from sports activities, museums to wildlife and lakes.

On the day we visited in April it was reasonably busy but still felt peaceful and relaxing. As well as having our little picnic, we had a good walk around for a couple of hours.

Here is what we saw as we wondered around the park.

The Taco Shop

Whilst out walking we had been enticed by a happy hour sign promising two for one Margaritas between 4pm to 8pm. This was an opportunity we couldn’t miss.

Whilst we were reading the menu we also spoke with owner who spoke English and was very friendly.

When we returned later that evening, we tried to explain to the waiter that we had met the owner between his broken English and our barely basic Portuguese, he thought that we were asking to see the owner. We quickly made our way to a table. We chose one which wrapped itself around outside of restaurant.

The menu had a good selection of tacos and burritos and there was two parts to it.

  

Firstly the choice was to select a protein and then choose one of three or four fillings which were different depending on whether you selected taco, burritos, salad or bowl.

The second part was predefined dishes.

We nearly made the mistake of not ordering the margaritas – we had misunderstood the happy hour and thought it applied to all cocktails and not just the Margies.  Thankfully the guy serving pointed this out when we tried to order two of the Caipriahna.

When the margaritas arrived they had salt stuck to the rim of the glass.  I don’t normally go with the salty version but these were delicious.  We had speculated earlier that due to happy hour offer it was highly likely that the drinks would be watered down.  We were very pleasantly surprised that they were not.

First up we went for camarao – shrimp with Taco Classico on a corn taco.  

This came with guacamole, melted cheese, a special sauce (not quite what that was) but perhaps that was why the cheese was very melted and slightly runny.  The taco was then finished with a generous amount of parsley and lettuce.  Before we ordered I wasn’t sure about the combination of prawns and cheese but it worked well.  The shrimps were not full sized prawns but they were larger than I expected and were really nice with the salad.  The corn tacos were thin with a slight crisp to them but they sat back and let the filling be the star of the show. Along with the two tacos was a good sized portion of nachos.

Once we had finished these we then got stuck into the next set.  

For our second course we went for another option from the first part of the menu.  This time we chose chicken as the protein and the “House Special” Taco Gourmet.  

This one had toasted cheese, more of the special sauce, parsely and was finished with bacon plus long slices of avocado.  This was a deliciously winning combination.  Once more we had this on the corn taco.  We demolished it all in a matter of minutes.  

For our final course (yes we had more!) we finished with some of the original style Bala style fish.  We chose another “House Special” the Fish Taco Especial.  

This came with juicy and flaky breaded white fish. It was layered with the special sauce – which by this time I was thinking was some kind of mayonnaise and topped with guacamole and crispy red cabbage.  This time we went for the wheat taco, which was slightly toasted and ultra slim.

We washed this down with a second round of the margaritas and spent less than we would in our home town of Manchester for one round of cocktails and no food!

We did also (unnecessarily) order what was arguably the smallest portion of fries in the world…

Street Art in São Paulo

Our final full day in São Paulo was spent as in one of my favourite ways, seeing Street Art.

My most favourite street artist is Eduardo Kobra, who is from São Paulo.  Before visiting the city, I had researched as far as I could what murals Kobra had created in his home city.  There were many but I had to be very selective as they were widespread and São Paulo is a big city with a lot of traffic.

I chose a few that were roughly in the same area. Albeit about a 3 hour round walking trip from our hotel and back again.  Allowing some time for taking photographs and going off on some slight tangents.

Here’s what we saw.

Casal de Bicicleta – Bicycle Couple

Location: R. Tavares Cabral, 61 – Pinheiros – São Paulo – SP

Carrying on along to same road, we came across this cute little piece. – not one of Kobras.

Colheita – Harvest

Location: R. Pedroso de Morais, 808 – Pinheiros, São Paulo – SP

Beco Do Batman

From Wikipedia “Beco do Batman  is the nickname for the area around Rua Gonçalo Afonso and Rua Medeiros de Albuquerque in the Vila Madalena neighborhood of São Paulo,  Beco do Batman is a popular tourist destination because of the dense concentration of graffiti that line the streets.

The nickname for the area is attributed to a graffito of the DC Comics character Batman, which was painted on one of the walls in the 1980s. Local art students began filling the walls with other psychedelic and cubist influenced designs.

The graffiti of Beco do Batman is now continually renovated and cared for by local community members.”

Here was what we saw…

Escadaria Das Bailarinas – Ballerina Staircase

Location: R. Alves Guimarães, 754 – Pinheiros, São Paulo – SP

CIÊNCIA E FÉ – Science and Faith

Location: Dr. Enéas de Carvalho Aguiar, 255 – Jardim Paulista – São Paulo – SP

Senna – The legend of Brazil

Location: R. Consolação, 2608 – Consolação, São Paulo – SP

Seja Luz – Whethered Light

Location: R. Oscar Freire, 329 – Jardins, São Paulo – SP

All information on the Kobra murals was taken from the Kobra website.

Pao com Carne Hamburgeria – Itaim Bibi

For our final meal in São Paulo, we went to a burger place in Itaim called Pao com Carne Hamburgeria.

The place had a very urban industrial look about it.  Wooden bars to dine at with metal stools.  In  a glass cabinet, opposite the bar area we were sat in we some little McDonalds memorabilia. 

The menu was pretty simple, there was a choice of about 6 different burgers – smashed and not.   We both went for the Cheese Salad Burger. This comprised of a 180g Beef Burger with cheese, lettuce and tomato.

There was a bit of a mix up with fries.  We thought we were ordering two separate portions.  My husband asked for large and I asked for small.  When the burgers arrived, we only had one basket of fries and it appeared that my choice of small was what we received.  Thankfully it was more than enough for two people.   The fries came with a delicious mayonnaise.

The burger was one of the best we have ever had.  Not quite as good as our favourite – Burger Joint in New York.  The burger patty was cooked to perfection. Cheese was nicely melted.  There was the right balance of salad going on.

With our burgers we also had a nice cold Goose Island Session IPA to wash it down.

When we paid for the food and gave a tip, the whole team that worked there chanted Obbbbriiggggaddddddooo. They did this many times, whilst we sat eating our burgers to every single person who tipped.  A unique and friendly way of ensuring the next in line feels obliged to give a tip or be shamed by the silence.

The food was really good value for money, we paid about £15 for the all of it and were pleasantly stuffed at the end. The tip we gave was very well deserved.

In Summary…

I did expect more from São Paulo in terms of the market, Japantown and the Melia Jardim Europa. However, Parque Ibirapuera was a real gem and I definitely could have spent longer there. Itaim Bibi and it’s casual food options were of a high standard. Would I go back? It wouldn’t be top of the list but never say never…on to the next stop Montevideo…