When I started going to Mocotó, in 2007, there was no Waze. I already have the internet, of course, but nothing that decently reproduces images on a cell phone. So I memorized the map that was on the restaurant’s website and made some very rough notes on a sheet of sulfite. I arrived, enjoyed and returned so many times that to this day I know the path by heart.
Vila Medeiros, on that first visit, seemed to me to be a strange and, in a way, scary place. It was scary because it was completely unknown. After two or three times at Seu Zé and Rodrigo’s bar, I felt at home in the hood.
He took friends, Brazilians and foreigners, whenever the opportunity arose, to venture into Vila Medeiros. The trip out of the city was obviously the most fun part of the program – sorry, Rodrigo, I know you’re a great cook, but no Mocotó wouldn’t be Mocotó if I had discovered him in Pinheiros or, let’s say, Tatuapé.
On second thought, maybe Tatuapé also had the excitement of the ride because, for a resident of the West Zone, Tatuapé is also in the hat house. Distance is always relative. For those who live in Manhattan, Queens is where the wind makes the curve – let alone the “cosmopolitan” Oscar Freire from São Paulo.
I wasn’t the only one to enjoy the excursions to the gorge a lot. The Mocotó ride became a fad, so much so that the lines became impassable on weekends. Vila Medeiros was included in the Michelin guide. Then Rodrigo opened in Pinheiros, on Paulista, in Los Angeles, without ever leaving the periphery.
Here comes a sweetheart who takes 16 people from Tatuapé to Vila Medeiros and starts scouring the chef’s neighborhood on Rodrigo’s social networks – labeled “dangerous” and “precarious”, in contrast to “Marvellous Neighborhood” (capital letters) do TATUAPÉ (caps lock jammed). Rodrigo responded in kind.
If the wishes of people like Dona Sandra were fulfilled, the beaches would be tiled and all the restaurants in the world would be in food courts. Glad there are still people who think differently. Good thing there is Mocotó da Vila Medeiros, the opposite of the mall restaurant. May there be more nice restaurants in the hat house and similar outbacks.
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