wejetset - magazine - Places to Eat & Drink: Sao Paulo's New Meaty Bar Scene

Places to Eat & Drink: Sao Paulo's New Meaty Bar Scene

Written by Phuong-Cac Nguyen: Sao Paulo has been seeing a veritable new wave of bars, bringing it fabulously current with the cosmopolitan hotspots it’s being compared to these days. In the past few months three American- and Euro-style bars are bringing the happiness-making concept of free entrance to the masses, even when a DJ plays. You see, bars here were usually just relegated into clubs (always with cover) or botecos, drinking establishments that ran from corner hole in-the-wall joints to ‘60s-nostalgia boho restaurants.

Sonique, the first of these fresh-faced bars, sports a baroque/rococo interior by envelope-pushing Brazilian-French architects Triptyque and offers a concierge service for clubbers trying to hook up tix to danceterias around town. The concrete behemoth is chic and the waiters are uniformed in American Apparel for an all but guaranteed hipster appeal. Click Read More for additional information and photos.

Within staggering distance away from Sonique is Volt, opened by the owner of the successful nearby club Vegas, whose fashionista/gay clientele digs the neon tube art (rescued when the mayor implemented a ban on ostentatious store and billboard signage throughout the city) by artist Kleber Matheus. Waiters are dressed by Marcelo Sommer in a vintage nod. Back on Rua Augusta at the start of the part with the strip clubs (the seedier the neighborhood, the better, of course), the same owner has his hand in the ‘50s rockabilly-style Z Carniceria, an old beef packing shop turned drinking den complete with original white-tile walls and meat hooks. The space was accidentally discovered when workers were knocking out a wall. The story follows that 20 years ago, the former owner kept hearing cows mooing and so thus constructed the wall to keep the ghosts inside. Whether it’s just a PR line or not, it definitely shows Sao Paulo is getting smart to its own It factor.