On Wednesday afternoons, he meets his friends to play cards. Once a month, he goes to the club to dance — it used to be every Sunday, but now his back can’t take it anymore. To compensate, since the beginning of this year, Sundays have become the day to go to Guarujá to fish. Plus, at 91, he still sleeps in the back of the bar he opened in 1962.
60 years ago at 1210 on Avenida do Cursino, in Bosque da Saúde, south of São Paulo, Bar do Luiz Nozoie celebrated its birthday in a way that was as lively as the routine of its owner, who is currently successful in the world of gastronomy. .
Among the bar’s fans are trendy chefs such as Paulo Shin, from Komah, Thiago Bañares, from Tan Tan, and Matheus Zanchini, from Borgo — the latter even has a card of his from Clube Atlético Juventus hidden among the memorabilia that fills the shelves. of space. But Luiz doesn’t know his colleagues’ work that well. “Actually, I don’t go out, I don’t know many restaurants. They want me to go, but I can’t do it alone”, he says.
About three months ago, the address became a meeting point for gastronomy people on Monday nights, as it is the traditional day off in the sector. To celebrate the bar’s anniversary, an agenda of guest chefs was created, which is available on the house’s Instagram and should run until October.
“Each time a cook comes here, another appears saying he also wants to participate”, says Márcia Nozoie, 60, Luiz’s daughter.
When asked about the schedule, he is sincere. “To tell you the truth, I don’t even know who invites,” he says. Márcia explains that they didn’t even know many of the chefs. “Who knows more is Alexandre [funcionário da casa], who says: ‘look, he owns such a place’. And then we started making friends,” he says.
On event days, the venue is packed. If you arrive early, sit down. But the vast majority of the public is squashed on the white Formica counter trying to get the team’s attention — orders are all placed there. Withdrawals, too. As the dishes come out, the servers call the clientele by name. The weather gets chaotic, but no one seems to care. “It’s even beautiful, it looks like a ballet”, comments Beatriz Falcão, a customer of the bar.
Márcia believes that, in the last six decades, the public has been renewed. “The clientele has always been older, 50 years old or older. Now we can see that the age group has dropped, they are people in their 20s, 30s.”
Not that the address didn’t draw attention beyond the borders of Health before. The white tile wall covered by already yellowed pages from the many articles that mention the house is proof of that. “The first magazine to talk about us was Playboy, in the 1980s”, says Márcia.
Signed by Carlos Nucci in 1986, the text describes an environment and menu similar to those found there in 2022. Opened as an ice cream parlor, the house discovered its vocation as a bar after starting to use the ice cream maker to deliver crunching beer bottles to customers. in record time. And yes, the ice cream maker is still on display there.
“Everything was left to us by my mother”, says Márcia, about the recipes. Today, she runs the kitchen and now social media, having started working full-time at the bar in 1986, the year her mother Shizue died. In addition to her, her husband, Dídio, nephew Fábio, sister-in-law Edith and, finally, Alexandre, the only one who is not in the family, complete the team.
Cold snacks are placed in glass bowls on the counter: preserves, olives, cheeses and sausages sold by the unit. The sausage dipped in a solution of vinegar, onion and pepper costs R$ 1.20, for example.
But the stars are the seafood, such as the octopus vinaigrettes (R$60), seafood and shrimp (R$50 each). These come out of the kitchen every day. Another favorite recipe of the house, the rollmops, sardines rolled with onions and pepper (R$ 4 a unit), take 25 days to be ready — and they are not always on hand.
“Not always”, by the way, is the general rule of thumb for the menu. “There are things that we only do when we have time”, justifies Márcia. This is the case with shrimp empadinhas with hearts of palm, shrimp tempura or rice balls with pepperoni and parmesan. The corn cake with steppe cheese is served every two weeks and costs R$ 4.50 a unit.
Among the fixed recipes, the highlight is the rissoles – called pastries – with meat and cheese, always with a black olive with a pit attached. They are the same ones that appear in the report from the 1980s, when they cost three cruzeiros. Today, the unit costs R$ 4.
To accompany, the options are the peanut or passion fruit shakes (R$ 15 each), which are accommodated in two-liter bottles. Or the stars: the cold beers, with prices from R$16 to 600 ml or from R$9 to a long neck.
Those who want to visit the place also need to be aware of the schedules. From Monday to Friday, the space is open from 17:30 to 22:00. On Saturdays, from 12:00 to 17:00. After all, bar life takes work, and Mr. Luiz needs to rest — or go fishing in Guarujá.
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.
