A Casa Do Porco, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Sao Paulo – a megacity of 12 million people, 8 million cars and a handful of tourist attractions. But we are under no illusions – we are here for the food!
Sao Paulo has rocketed onto the destination dining scene in recent years, with an explosion of cutting edge restaurants expounding innovative Brazilian cuisine. High profile celebrity chefs have put Sao Paulo on the epicurean map, first and foremost among them being Chef Alex Atala of restaurant D.O.M. (see our upcoming review), a pioneer and passionate promoter of the use of native Brazilian ingredients to astounding effect.
But alongside the multiple fine dining establishments of Sao Paulo, a very different star has arisen – A Casa Do Porco. Currently the highest ranked Brazilian restaurant in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, coming in at number 39, A Casa Do Porco is a fun-filled, pork-themed extravaganza. And we can highly recommend a visit.
A Casa Do Porco, literally translating as The House of the Pig, is the creative brainchild of chef Jefferson Rueda, who rears and slaughters his own pigs at his countryside farm, then pays homage to the hogs by utilising all aspects of the animal in his creative (and delicious) cuisine.
A Casa Do Porco is not your usual Michelin-starred restaurant. Tucked away on a gritty side street in downtown Sao Paulo, the restaurant has no English on its website, does not take reservations and is infamous for its extensive queues. If this sounds like it should belong in the too-hard basket, we would definitely encourage you to persevere – it is a Sao Paulo experience that should not be missed!
We are going on a Sunday – a day when the vast majority of Sao Paulo’s finest restaurants are closed for the day, but on which A Casa Do Porco is open from 1200 to 1700. There is little online information available in English, but putting Google Translate to work on multiple Portuguese articles has told us that weekend queues can be from 2 to 4 hours. We arrive by taxi just before 1100 – a large ceramic pig statue tells us we are in the right place, as does the queue which is already in place around the corner. But the line of people is under-cover and jovial on this drizzly Sao Paulo morning, united in their determination for fine pork-based food, and we are optimistic that there are not actually too many people ahead of us. We settle in for a solid wait, as the line progressively grows behind us.
But in fact, we do not have that long a wait at all. At about 1120, the queue starts to move as waitstaff from the restaurant take our details in rapid-fire Portuguese – a friendly Sao Paulo local helps interpret for us – yes, we have a table confirmed for the 1200 sitting, so we can return with our ticket at 1200 to be seated. After a short walk around a somewhat seedy district of Sao Paulo, we return for the theatrics of opening time at A Casa Do Porco, with a burly bouncer-esque attendant calling out ticket numbers in a resounding baritone, and enthusiastic ticket-bearing guests being admitted table-by-table for seating. Perhaps taking pity on our pitiful Portuguese, we are called by both number and endearingly-accented names, before being escorted to our bar-front seats.
Inside, A Casa Do Porco is a riotous extravaganza of pig-inspired decoration, adorned with ceramic pigs of all shapes and sizes and all sorts of colourful piggy memorabilia. It is warm, inviting and unpretentious, packed with enthusiastic guests, while waitstaff in leather aprons dart expertly through the narrow spaces.
We are greeted exuberantly by Diego, of whom we had already read much about on TripAdvisor, as he is one of the few English-speaking members of staff. And while there is no English version of the full a la carte menu, there is an English translation of the nine course degustation menu, known as “The Pig Is…”, which makes this the obvious way to go for the hungry and Portuguese-deficient.
Our cocktails are mixed by the frenetic but jovial bar staff in front of us, whilst we can also see into the adjacent open kitchen, where a massive team of chefs and cooks in blue bandanas are hard at work over grills and stoves, amidst a haze of steam and smoke and hearty aromas.
We start with a ‘breakfast’ course…
Soon we are commencing with our first course, “The Pig is History” – a breakfast course of sourdough bread, pork lard butter and mortadella with Brazil nuts, green apple slices with a small salad, accompanied by melon juice and a coffee cup of cured ham consommé. Every aspect is delicious (although we hope subsequent courses are not nearly as generous, as fullness would be imminent!). The accompanying explanatory newspaper explains that pork lard was once currency in Brazil, and the pork lard butter is a tribute from the chef to the history of Brazil.
The next course, “The Pig is Free”, is definitely more restrained, a small patty of pork tartare with bulger wheat, herbs and beetroot hummus. It feels almost healthy, although the side plate of chicharrones (fried pork scratchings) puts paid to that!
Next are two courses, “The Pig is World” and “The Pig is Country”, which pay homage to the multicultural heritage of Brazil. The first is a Japanese style nigiri sushi, topped with a delicate piece of pork jowl that has been glazed with black tucupi (a sauce extracted from wild manioc root in Brazil's Amazon jungle), and roasted until it is caramelised. The second is Italian influenced – a thin parmigiana of baked eggplant, topped with unctuous pork ragu, a tomato passata and thinly grated parmesan. Both courses are two little bites of perfection.
Diego proudly presents the next course theatrically in a large ceramic pig’s head, warning us of the brains and blood inside, before laughing and removing the lid to reveal two small and immaculately presented cubes of pork belly, with divinely-prepared crackling, a spicy guava jam and pickled red onions. This dish, “The Pig is Pop”, has a cult following on the a la carte menu, and it is easy to see why – the flavours and textures are a match made in porcine heaven.
“The Pig is Brazil” follows, a small bowl of Brazil’s national dish fiejoada, a stew of pork and beans, with a surrounding broth of collard greens and cubes of plantain and tangerine. It is hearty and flavoursome. Next is “The Pig is Street”, typical Brazilian street food – a barbecue tasting plate of small but incredibly rich pork sausage and a slice of gnaw-off-the-bone pork ribs (and lick every last drop off your fingers after!).
Finally, after almost an hour and a half of porcine dining, we are finally at the main event, “The Pig is Prose”, A Casa Do Porco’s flagship dish. A portion of a whole 100kg pig which has been roasted in embers for six hours. Looking around the restaurant, many of our fellow diners appear to have come purely for this one dish, and with good reason – the meat is oozily rich and meltingly tender, served carved into generous chunks with masses of crispy crackling. An array of sides provide a harmonious balance – black beans (with bacon!), collard greens, a banana tartar and an onion farofa (toasted manioc flour). It is a gut-busting finale, and a fitting pinnacle for this incredible menu.
Dessert is, somewhat surprisingly but perhaps thankfully, not pork based – “The Pig is People” is a tribute to another staple of Brazilian cuisine – corn. Creamed corn, sweetened crispy corn, corn wafer and corn dust accompany a refreshing goats cheese ice cream.
By the end of the meal, we are incredibly full and thoroughly enchanted by our experience at A Casa Do Porco. The food has been some of the best we have ever tried in our travels, whilst the atmosphere of joviality and enthusiasm far exceeds that of the vast majority of restaurants that make it onto “best of” lists around the world. And all of this for just 125 Brazilian real per person (approximately A$45), plus very reasonably priced drinks.
So if you are heading to Sao Paulo, even if just passing through, we would thoroughly recommend making time for a visit to A Casa Do Porco – even if it seems hard, and even if you do have to queue for far longer than we did, it is truly worth the wait, for what is surely the best pork degustation in the world!
