Trifter

I’m walking down the mile-long Avenida Paulista, flanked on both sides by rows of skyscrapers glittering in the baking afternoon sunshine. At ground level, the traffic is so heavy it is difficult to breathe and impossible hear anything but the roar of engines. Yet all around me there are people struggling to be heard, shouting at me to stop and look at the various wares they are selling at street stalls, or begging for some change, trying to get me to go inside a shop or café.

The city of Sao Paulo, in Brazil is built on a paradox where meticulous planning meets haphazardness, deprivation meets excess and beauty looks profound ugliness in the face. Stepping out of the chaotic street and into the orderly, wealthy atmosphere of a 7-storey shopping mall feels like entering some sort of Tardis, for I might as well be in a different world. There are hundreds of such places in Sao Paulo, and the generous exchange rate makes it a very attractive shopping destination for foreigners, but the locals like them because they are safe and clean, even if they cannot quite afford the Louis Vuiton bags.

I head for the restaurants, which occupy an entire floor and are bustling with shoppers and office workers from the area in their lunch hour. I chose one named Vienna, which has no apparent connection to Austria or its cuisine. Instead it offers about 50 dishes ranging from pasta, risottos, salads, fritters, and traditional Brazilian treats such as Feijoada – a thick black bean and pork stew – and palmito – delicious hearts of palm served both cooked and in salads.

I fill a plate and queue up to have my plate weighed, then pay for my food by the kilo. Sao Paulo was a target for mass immigration particularly after World Wars I and II. There is a vibrant Japanese community in the Bairro da Liberdade – Liberty Quarter – and a thriving Italian vibe in the Bexiga Quarter – the word means balloon in Portuguese, don’t ask me why. There are as many restaurants as there are nationalities scattered about , and so there were restaurants to suit every taste, even those I didn’t previously know I had.

We had not yet tried the most popular ticket in town, however, which was a visit to a Churrascaria. That evening I drove to a restaurant by the side of a typically busy road, where for a fixed price of around £20 I could help myself to gigantic buffet containing everything from cheese to sushi, three loaded tables altogether. Once that was done, all that was left was for waiters to bring every conceivable cut of charcoal-barbecued pork, beef and chicken to the table in huge spits, and cut as much as I wanted onto my plate. My husband loves meat and as he tucked in he declared with a look of reverence that he had died and gone to heaven. If he ate much more he probably would have done just that.