When passing through a door, one arrives at a French restaurant, with red walls covered with photographs. The next entrance leads to a modern Italian house. Right next to it, there is another space, with a counter, lively soundtrack, drinks and snacks. Another access reveals a low-light Japanese restaurant with a ceiling covered in 10,000 pieces of bamboo.
Despite having very different personalities, the houses share the same address – Vila Anália, an ambitious gastronomic complex opened earlier this month in the Jardim Anália Franco region, in the east side of São Paulo.
There are five restaurants in the space: the French Merci, the Italian Temperani, the Spanish Tapas 93, the Japanese Susume and the Greek Mii, which will open on the terrace in the second half of the year. The house also has a pastry shop and an ice cream shop —or, better, an ice cream shop—, Vila Anália Pâtisserie. In the coming weeks, it will also gain an emporium and, finally, a chocolate shop. When everything is ready, the place will be able to accommodate up to a thousand people.
“We are going to create the Las Vegas of gastronomy”, says Guilherme Temperani, who runs the venture together with three cousins. “Here, adults will be entertained from early morning until late at night”, says he, who dreams of the place becoming a tourist spot in the city.
The investment to put the address up has already exceeded R$ 14 million. There are five floors – two levels of underground parking, where the delivery space will also work, the restaurants on the ground floor, the emporium on the mezzanine plus the roof, which is still under construction, but which already displays coconut trees that weigh more than five tons. A tour can be taken inside a glass-enclosed elevator, which also passes inside the cellar.
Who runs the kitchens is an experienced team of São Paulo gastronomy. Ligia Karasawa, formerly of Eataly, is the group’s executive chef; Antonio Maiolica, from the former Antonietta Cucina, is the chef-consultant at Temperani; Thiago Cerqueira, who ran Sympa, is Merci’s chef; bartender Márcio Silva, who established himself at Guillotina, signs the entire drinks menu. The cast also includes Fábio Sinbo, headed by the Japanese Susume, Eduardo Portilho, who signs the Tapas 93 menu with Karasawa, the pastry chef Pedro Frade, in addition to the sommelier Ricardo Santinho.
In common, their curriculum displays the names of popular addresses in the west and south of São Paulo.
“We understand that off-the-beaten-path gastronomy needs to happen. People can’t just move from here to the south zone or from the north zone to another place”, says the businessman. And the region of Tatuapé and Anália Franco, he believes, is great for that. “We want people to come here and see that Tatuapé is safe, that there is a different kind of care in this region.”
Despite the renowned team and signed design environments, the prices are not exorbitant. The average ticket is up to 30% lower than in the south and west, for example. “Even because it is a gastronomic complex, we can make some things cheaper”, says the businessman. But just as each restaurant has its own personality, the values also vary. On average, between R$140 and R$230 are spent.
Spokesperson for the group, Guilherme Temperani plays Vila Anália with his cousins Marcus, Danilo and Vitor. They are heirs of a circus family —the great-great-grandfather, Leopoldo, was the first bullet-man in Brazil—, who later entered the gastronomy business. The troupe grew up in the hall of the Dizzy cafeteria, in Vila Maria, in the north of São Paulo.
As adults, they began to nurture the dream of resuming the family’s gastronomic vein and started a small gastronomic empire in the east side. They surfed the wave of Mexican palettes with Los Primos, but in 2015 they created Macaxeira, a Northeastern food restaurant that was so successful that it now has seven units.
In 2019, they opened the Uruguayan Uru, which confirmed the region’s potential for them — the restaurant is 300 meters from Vila Anália, the group’s most recent and ambitious undertaking.
“It’s a little ant’s work, but it’s starting to bear fruit”, says Temperani.
I am currently a news writer for News Bulletin247 where I mostly cover sports news. I have always been interested in writing and it is something I am very passionate about. In my spare time, I enjoy reading and spending time with my family and friends.
