Merenda da Cidade, from the owners of A Casa do Porco, offers commercial dishes for R$40

Chefs Janaína and Jefferson Rueda, whose restaurant A Casa do Porco has just been chosen as the 12th best in the world by 50 Best, opened last week another venture in downtown São Paulo, Merenda da Cidade.

The house proposes to offer a fixed dish per day. It is imbued with the repertoire that Janaína Torres Rueda carries from the time when she carried out a work with lunch ladies from public schools in the State of São Paulo, in 2015, in which she trained more than 2,000 professionals.

She used to wake up early and go to schools to demonstrate the preparation of dishes like pasta, pot meat and feijoada — the same concept that she now uses in her new restaurant. The period, however, was not restricted to cooking classes, it also served to shed light on the work of anonymous cooks, who are of vital importance in the culture and food education of the city.

She opened the project in a spot that formerly hosted the extinct Marcel, a São Paulo classic, and, until recently, served as a stock for the Torres Rueda group.

In the pandemic, she did the work without an architect to set up a delivery kitchen and took the opportunity to accommodate the demand for her social actions there. Then, the chef transformed the same space into a cafeteria for more than 300 employees of the group, which is now open to the public.

The food, served only at lunch, is the same as that of the employees —a single recipe, which varies every day. They are commercial dishes typical of pubs, which marked the daily life of São Paulo. For customers, the card is collected at the window and, inside the house, self-service is carried out and it is possible to sit at collective tables — there are almost 50 seats.

The dish costs R$40 and comes with a fresh salad with organic ingredients from Sítio Rueda, in São José do Rio Pardo, a natural juice or a soft drink, such as hibiscus with lemongrass, sweetened with molasses, and a small dessert. There may be, depending on the day, brigadeiro, chocolate mousse or coconut foam with girl’s drool.

The chicken served on Sundays with pasta is also organic — it’s the same as at Bar da Dona Onça. The turn in the style of São Paulo, on display on Mondays, is a favorite of the house. It comes with rice, bean tutu, cabbage, fried egg, with soft yolk, and a banana tartare that, seasoned with
lemon, olive oil, pout pepper and red onion, it balances sweetness, acidity and spiciness.

This combo includes pork: a sausage without preservatives, from Porco Real, the group’s family refrigerator, and a roast pork, which also comes from its own farm in the interior of São Paulo and grows on carrots, beetroot, corn and cheese whey. .

On Fridays, a rich stew is served as a base for the fish dish. The fish in sauce, with tomatoes, peppers, carrots and potatoes, is enhanced by the presence of palm oil farofa. Saturdays are reserved for the classic feijoada by Janaína Rueda, who also works around recording Top Chef, the television program on which she is a judge.

All ingredients are fresh. The dried meat is cured in the house and the pig’s loin, foot, tail and ear are used. There is also bacon and sausage, both added to the stew that results in a thicker broth, like the feijoada at Bar da Dona Onça. To accompany, banana tartare, cabbage salad, orange slices and cassava flour that comes from Bahia and takes a fright in the frying pan, to be more discreet — it’s the beans that have to shine.

On Tuesdays they have steak à rolê, with rice, beans, puree and onion farofa (the same as at A Casa do Porco); on Wednesdays, stroganoff; and on Thursdays, homemade pasta with Bolognese sauce.

The only dish offered every day is rice from the land, a vegan option that takes on different contours depending on what the place provides the freshest.

Its preparation starts with sautéing onion and garlic, with a little tomato, which gives a broth in which the rice is cooked. It can count on mushroom shavings and various vegetables. These, like zucchini, beets and carrots, are cooked at different times and cut into different sizes to grace the dishes.
textures of the dish, finished with buds and fresh flowers.

“The base of the rice is a stew. I call our great stews”, says Janaína. “I put pickles to give acidity, something more cooked, another more toasted.

Depending on what we have available, we make a marinade in sherry vinegar, apple cider vinegar, or soy sauce. It’s fun to play with,” he says.

As of the next 13th, the house will serve sandwiches from 7 pm to 11 pm – combos with potato chips and a juice also priced at R$40. with long fermentation and in-house production, more rustic, with Porco Real ham, Mandala cheese, from Pardinho Artesanal, refined in the cellar for 18 months, and tomato.

Other bets are the bread with meat, a cassava bread, with a firmer crust, which involves a thin steak, and the pork burger, made with pancetta, with cheese and potato brioche bread.