Jamie Oliver to open new restaurant in São Paulo

Jamie Oliver, the famous British chef, is planning on opening a new restaurant in São Paulo by the end of the year, his first opening in Latin America. The owner of Fifteen is probably more famous in the UK for his school dinner’s campaign than for his actual restaurants but that won`t stop him taking on São Paulo.

He will however, need to hire a better public relations team. His first public declarations were an attack on the country’s favourite sweet the brigadeiro.  Branded “too sweet” and “horrible” he immediately provoked a backlash from Brazilian chefs and food critics who accused him of misunderstanding the local food culture. Oh dear. 

Jamie Oliver, not a fan of sweet food

At least he has the advantage of not being a household name in Brazil so it will probably be quickly forgotten. In any case let’s hope he doesn’t make any more gaffes before opening “Jamie’s Italian” in Bixiga. No, wait, in Itaim.

The etymology of São Paulo’s neighbourhoods

What is the origin of your neighbourhood’s name? 

Below is a quick and dirty list of some São Paulo districts and where their names come from:

Bixiga (Bela Vista)

The saying goes that an infection of the bladder ("bexiga" in Portuguese) was common in the farmland area of Bela Vista in in the late nineteenth century and residents were labelled Bixigas as a pejorative term. Another possibility is that an Italian resident known for drinking heavily at the bars and taverns of Bela Vista, had a belly as round and big as a party balloon (which is also called "bexiga" in Portuguese), so, the area was nicknamed after him.

Ipiranga

Ipiranga comes from the indigenous language Tupi. It means red river which is the colour the rivers take when containing a lot of the local red coloured earth.

Itaim Bibi

Itaim Bibi the portuguese word bebê (baby) was adapted to Bibi by slaves referring to the son of famous doctor Leopoldo Couto Magalhães. Magalhães was also the owner of the Chácara Itaí. Hence th eneighbourhood name Itai(m) Bibi.

Jardins

Jardins means gardens in Portuguese not many of which seem to have survived the passage of time.

Moema

Moema is a reference to a chracter in the poem Caramuru by Santa Rita Durão

Perdizes

Perdizes - Joaquim Alves was one of the better own breeders of partridges (perdizes) who live din the area at the end of the 19^th century. He lived in what is now known as Largo Padre Péricles. Hence the área became known as Campo de Perdizes (partridge fields) and later simply Perdizes.

Pinheiros

Pinheiros literally means pine trees and this because the land which this neighbourhood occupies used to be an area of dense forest which contained a Brazilian subtropical species of pine, Araucaria angustifolia, which incidentally is very common in Curitiba and is the symbol of Paraná state.

Tatuapé

Tatuapé is another Tupi name meaning the path (apé) of the armadillos (tatu). 

Vitra: São Paulo's skyline gains a new icon

Yes, it’s another skyscraping condominium in São Paulo. Yes it’s in Itaim the supposedly entertaining but boringly predictable mid to upper class neighbourhood favoured by expats in São Paulo. Yes, it will contribute to the verticalisation of São Paulo’s neighbourhoods. And yes, 99,9% of São Paulo’s inhabitants will never step foot inside.

But it’s beautiful.

Vitra, the apartment block which poses as a colossal glass sculpture will provide a landmark building to be proud of, something São Paulo actually has very few. Granted there are many tall buildings, too many one could argue,  but most look identical to the one next to it which in turn looks identical to the one next to it and the one beyond that. The sort of “wow” building that you expect to see (and do see) when you travel to Seoul or Tokyo or Shanghai or New York is strangely missing in the similarly sized São Paulo. Growth has come first, design a poor second.

So take a second look at the the plans Daniel Libeskind has for Horácio Lafer Avenue. The architect better known for his Imperial War Museum in Manchester, The projected L Tower in Toronto or the Haeundae Park Marina in Busan, Korea is launching his first ever project in South America. And right here in São Paulo.

Artist's impression of Vitra at night

Vitra has only one apartment per floor, each with a customized floor plan, plus an additional two floor penthouse which one of São Paulo’s many millionaires has no doubt already snapped up. The very smallest apartment will be 565 square meters, beyond most of our means, but then the project was never designed to be modest.

According to Libeskind “it represents the unfolding dynamism of a unique place and an energetic population full of optimism and potential, gesturing openly to a wide panorama of São Paulo it represents the unfolding dynamism of a unique place and an energetic population full of optimism and potential, gesturing openly to a wide panorama of São Paulo”. 

Whether you agree or not and whether you like it or not, Libeskind present to São Paulo’s skyline is already well underway and will be unveiled in 2013.

Getting used to car crashes in São Paulo

When I first got here I saw quite a few car crashes and thought it was a coincidence but then I got used to them and realised that the screech + bang combo is part and parcel of daily life in Sampa. Mostly I've seen low speed bumps which have taken off wing mirror, scratched bumpers or dented the bodywork but there are lots of more serious incidents.



According to the 2008 figures published by the University of São Paulo, Department of Transportation there are on average 70,9 fatalities per 100,000 vehicles in Brazil which means more than 35,000 people die in road accidents every year. To put that in context the we are talking 15 fatalities per 100,000 vehicles in the US and 7 per 100,000 in the UK so without exaggerating it's fair to say safe road safety is not exactly the same as back home.

Here are 3 of the high profile ones that the São Paulo media picked up on in the past 30days:

08/08/2011 Lorry that somehow managed to fall from one motorway on to another below it at Raposo Tavares in North West São Paulo

30/07/2011 - Car which overturned and killed a pedestrian close to my house in Vila Madalena

09/07/2011 Porsche being driven at 150km/h in a residential area of Itaim Bibi hits car that drove through a red light at night (a common and accepted practice to avoid theft and carjacking)

I won't go into the details but all 3 drivers responsible for each incident were able to walk away from their vehicles unharmed. Unfortunately the same can't be said of the people they hit.

I have a driving license but I've never owned a vehicle and something tells me this is not the best city to get back into driving...

International brand adaptations: Zara, Burger King and Brasilwagen

When you move to a new country it's always interesting to see how international brands adapt to the local market. I had lunch with a fellow marketeer this week and he told me that Zara (which you won't find on the high street, only in São Paulo's more upmarket and select shopping malls) had to raise prices for the Brazilian market in order to increase desirability amongst middle to high class shoppers and drive sales. It made me smile because it's the exact opposite positioning it has in its home country Spain where it is an affordable, accessible, mass market, high street retailer.

Below are some more obvious examples which I have stumbled across whilst trekking through the southern neighbourhoods Moema, Itaim and Vila Olimpia:

Burgers on the terrace: BK being meteorologically aware

Yes, I did a doubletake too.

Slavery, economic apartheid & barbecue protests

123 years ago today Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil signed the Lei Áurea, or Golden Law in Rio de Janeiro and thereby ended a phenomena which to a large extent has formed and influenced the Brazilian population and society we have today. That phenomena was slavery. And perhaps unsurprisingly for a country which left it that late to abolish the practice and which only did so, long after its independence from colonial Portugal and at a time when it by in large no longer needed slaves (cheap European workers were starting to fill the gap) the great inequalities left behind are still clearly visible today. Some of them are quite shocking to the outsider:

One of the first things you notice when in São Paulo is that there is an incredible gap in the wealth of its inhabitants and that society is effectively divided into economic strata. Of course there have always been the haves and the have nots, and this not the place to descend into socio-political theory, but in São Paulo it feels more like the have everythings and the have jackshits, pardon my language. Evidently it is somewhat more complex than this and there are many strata but what is really interesting is the way in which, even residing in close proximity, sharing the same city, the same resources, the upper ones have virtually no contact with the lower ones. The “uppers” do not even contemplate the use of public transport, they don’t move outside of “upper” districts, and certainly don’t socialize with anyone other than other “upper”. Obviously the “lowers” primarily for economic reasons don’t use private transport, frequent upper districts or socialize with uppers and in many buildings to avoid the uncomfortable situation of having to mix with somebody of a different social echelon architects specifically build separate entrances, separate lifts, separate gateways. The recently departed president, Lula, called it “economic apartheid” and there are some who read in racial undertones (skin colour gets lighter as you work your way up the echelons) although my gut feeling is that economics is indeed a far greater factor.

 

But as much as the theory is interpretable and arguable the practice is stark and blunt. A curious example I have to hand is the recent protests in the very clean-sounding “upper” neighbourhood of Higienopolis described by Mark Kobayashi Hillary in Computer Weekly. As is well known São Paulo has desperate transportation problems, a huge overdependence on private vehicles and an urgent need for improved public transport infrastructure (shhhh what do you mean, how on earth are they going to host the World Cup?!). Fortunately the new line 4 is already under construction and partially open and there are plans for a line 6 which runs from Vila Clarice to Anália Franco passing through Higienopolis-Mackenzie. Yes this is where we come back to the “uppers” and the “lowers” because the residents of Higienopolis are up in arms at the prospect of having “lowers” reach their neighbourhood through the horrors of an efficient public transport system. So whilst in other parts of the world there would be protests at the lack of access to public transport in your neighbourhood in São Paulo we have reverse protests whereby the residents try to block any plans to build a station in the affluent parts of town. As Hillary calls it this is a full scale reverse class war which has made the local administration succumb and reroute the line. I have heard similar stories of re-routed buslines so that bus stops are kept well away from high-end shops and restaurants of another “upper” neighbourhood, Itaim Bibi.

Now, no post is fun without a good finish so let me know your thoughts on this Facebook event which plans to host a huge street barbecue and party tomorrow afternoon outside the main shopping mall in Higienopolis complete with street food, street music open to all residents (upper and lower) of São Paulo in order to create a semi-spontaneous event so large the authorities will have to respond to the event manifesto: a full investigation into the cancelling of the metro station and a formal response from Governor Geraldo Alckmin. I just checked and there are 54,000 attendees. Now that's a lot of burgers amd sausages….

Maybe they are preparing for tomorrow's barbecue..