Piselli, a restaurant that brings together politicians and wealthy people in SP, turns 18

The history of the São Paulo restaurant Piselli, which turns 18 on Sunday (31), begins 18 years before its opening and about 100 kilometers away. In 1986, in the city of Joanópolis, in the interior of São Paulo, Juscelino Pereira was almost reaching the age of majority when he was asked by his father to follow the entrepreneurial legacy of the family, who had a farm and a small emporium in the city.

“I realized that everyone always planted the same things there, which made prices fall at the time of sale. So I decided to make a pea vegetable garden”, he recalls, who was named in honor of President Juscelino Kubitschek, whose grandfather was a fan. “I went to Bragança Paulista and managed to sell 400 kilos of peas.”

At the time of deliveries, however, the young man discovered that the entire harvest was spoiled. “A buyer explained to me that I had planted pea, which needs to be harvested first.” With the loss, Pereira traveled to the capital to work in a cafeteria in Casa Verde, in the north.

Helping in the kitchen and serving, he felt right at home in the restaurant. That’s when he heard about the potential of the Jardins region, where wages were said to be higher. After being a busboy at Lapa and a waiter at the headquarters of the Jockey Club, on Rua Boa Vista, downtown, he started working in Jardins in the early 1990s, at Alameda Lorena, as a maître d’.

In 1993, already a wine connoisseur, he was invited to work at Fasano alongside Manoel Beato as second sommelier and, a year later, he was transferred to Gero. “He would write down the name of the client and his wife in a diary, with each one’s favorite dishes and what they liked to drink. It worked very well”, he says.

But, at 34, he recalled that demand from his father. “With visits to Italy and discovering the products there, I was making plans to open something in São Paulo.” In a short time, he rented a spot in Jardins and set up a kitchen — but he still didn’t know what the name of the new space would be. “In an Italian class, the teacher said ‘piselli’. I asked a friend what that word meant — and he told me it was a pea.”

Piselli opened its doors on Rua Padre João Manuel on July 31, 2004 and became a stronghold for the wealthy in the neighborhood and the setting for political meetings, all looking for recipes from the northern region of Italy. Some classics remain on the menu to this day, such as the Fontina cheese ravioli with black truffle cream, which costs R$93, and the polenta mille-feuille with mushrooms and Grana Padano cheese, which costs R$77.

“The mayor of Ribeirão Preto, Duarte Nogueira, always comes to eat fresh pasta. Former governor João Doria always asks for a lighter fish”, says Pereira.

More than the 18th anniversary of the matrix restaurant, the anniversary also marks the first year of the inauguration of Piselli Boa Vista, on top of the ACSP building, the São Paulo Commercial Association, in the center of the capital. There, it is only open at lunchtime, from Monday to Friday, with a cuisine that honors a very São Paulo dish: Filet San Paolo, made with onion steak, rice, beans and fries, at a price of R$ 120. .

For the celebrations, the businessman prepared some news. The first is an own recipe for olive oil, developed in partnership with the Orfeu brand. Another launch is the new house wine, Piselli Rosso DOC. Made by the Piedmontese winery Castello di Gabiano, it is a blend of barbera and pinot nero grapes. The bottle costs R$195 and can be an option for the Tartufo Nero menu, created for the house’s anniversary. For R$395, the sequence includes a starter, two courses and dessert.

There is, for example, the cappuccino di funghi al tartufo (cream of mushrooms and black truffle), the ravioli alla piemontese con tartufo (ravioli stuffed with taleggio cheese, asparagus and egg yolk, topped with black truffle), the anatra confit and tartufo (confit duck, demi glace sauce served with tartufo nero polenta) and, to sweeten, the crema di mascarpone, miele e tartufo (mascarpone cream, truffled honey and slats of tartufo nero).

But don’t be surprised if, during the meal, you hear a resounding “how wonderful!” in the hall. That means Juscelino Pereira is in the area. “It’s my catchphrase.”

Piselli
R. Padre João Manuel, 1253, Cerqueira César, west region, piselli.com.br

Piselli Boa Vista

R. Boa Vista, 51, 12th floor, Center

Piselli South
Shopping Iguatemi – Av. Faria Lima, 2232, Jardim Paulistano, south region