What a great meal at TUJU ⭐️⭐️ in São Paulo, Brazil!
Overall: Chef Ivan has elevated Brazil’s fine dining with TUJU, which is a very strong 2-star. Very cool concept where the menu changes based on seasonal natural disasters (I think?) instead of the seasons. I went when the Windy menu was being served and the Drought menu was going to start the next day. Chef Ivan tries to greet almost every guest and is very kind and personable. The place is very cool—I’m pretty sure the building was built specifically for this concept. It’s 3 floors and you spend parts of the meal in each of them. Food was tasty and they turn local, season ingredients into elegant dishes.
Service/Atmosphere: a mix of fun and classy. It is a beautiful 3-story building with a different vibe in each. Service was excellent—very professional without losing the Brazilian hospitality
Food: a few dishes are missing, I posted my favorite.
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Oyster was delicious. Very refreshing and served with a local (nonspicy) pepper called cambuci
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Shrimp with its own juice, okra (served a little too raw for me, it was hard to chew even)
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A little pilllowy turnover made with banana as the dough, filled with oxtail. Delicious! A little overcooked as you can see lol.
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Bread service was great. The laminated bread was my favorite.
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Porcini topped with a type of pine nut that is very popular in Brazil.
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Octopus—excellent!
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Skate—served with a blue crab emulsion and makomodake. My favorite dish—so good!
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Suckling pig with gnocchi and served with a guava sauce.
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Dessert was a very cool use of simple ingredients that had very elegant flavors. Mine was served a little too cold (you can see the frostbite) but I enjoyed it nonetheless
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Cheese course on the 3rd floor. What a cool way to end the meal. Definitely need to share it with 2-3 people though lol. The space upstairs is beautiful
by macchinas