Taste SP ends with tribute to chef Paulo Yoller and audience record

The last weekend of Taste SP was marked by heat, full booths and tribute to chef Paulo Yoller, killed in February this year.

This was the longest edition of the festival, which lasted three weekends and in one of them took the four days of Corpus Christi’s holiday. Added to the ten days of the event, Taste gathered public of 78,000 people, a record. Last year, for example, there were 72 thousand.

The number shows the consolidation of the event, according to Luiz Américo Camargo, curator of Taste SP. The festival takes place in other countries and has its largest audience in Brazil.

This year, 28 bars and restaurants had booths at the festival. For Camargo, the variety of dishes portrays the gastronomic scene of São Paulo.

“It is also a space for public formation. Anyone who has never eaten in Fasano or had contact with Korean cuisine, for example, can prove here. While Taste has classics such as the Mocotó Tapioca Dadinho and the Bráz Pizza.”

Restaurant booths remained full for all periods. Early Saturday night, some had sold out dishes, which were sold again on Sunday – Caso do La Peruana and Casa Rios’s pig sandwich.

As happened throughout the festival, the dynamics of learning dishes taught by renowned chefs worked well, with always full classes.

Andrea Kaufmann opened the session, at 1 pm, from Space Fire Pit. Delicatessen and Jewish restaurant chef Ak Deli, Kaufmann taught Pastrami’s recipe she prepares in her store, made with both breast and ox tongue.

The chef explained that the meat goes through three steps: healing, cooking and smoking. “In Pastrami, healing is done in a wet half,” he said. The marinade he prepares takes ingredients such as coriander and mustard grains, as well as salt and nitrite – the last the secret to the red color of the meat.

The whole process takes about 15 days. “At AK, we produced about 50 kg a week,” he said.

Kaufmann was followed by Ligia Karazawa, executive chef of houses such as Ici Brasserie, the Vafa Bar and the Astor Bar – which had a festival booth. In the space dedicated to preparations in the Brasa, he taught the public tricks in cooking a tambaqui, freshwater fish from the Amazon region.

While Karazawa prepared his fish, Lucia Sequeira showed how she does a top hat, a typical Pernambuco candy that takes banana and curd cheese. In the preparation of the chef, the dairy used was Marajó cheese, produced on Para Island with buffalo milk. The two chefs encouraged the consumption of Brazilian products and the purchase of small producers.

Late Saturday afternoon, chef Flavio Miyamura taught the shrimp preparation by taking advantage of all parts of the ingredient from head to toe. At the same time, in the kitchen chat space, the duo Caio Alciati and João Gertel gave a tacos workshop. Owners of Losdos Cantina, Mexican restaurant, they taught three types of parsley.

“Salsa is one of the most important preparations of Mexican cuisine, accompanies almost every meal. And it’s an essential ingredient for the clubs,” said Alciati.

The three recipes took the same ingredients: green tomatoes, onion, garlic and coriander. The preparation, however, was distinct. One parsley was made with raw items, another with them cooked in water and the third had the toasted ingredients in a frying pan. In the end, the workshop participants tasted the sauces in tacos mounted with meat and tortillas from Losdos Cantina.

Sunday began with chef Viviane Gonçalves preparing a toasted octopus, a dish of her restaurant menu, Emiliano.

The mollusk should be cleaned with coarse salt, a process that also makes your meat softer. The cooking takes 45 minutes, made in immersion in home vegetable broth. “I do not use pressure cooker, I prefer to cook slowly,” explained the chef. The toasted flavor comes from the ember or a hot frying pan, where it is until golden.

At 4 pm, chef Paulo Yoller was honored by his daughter in the Fire Pit space. Yoller kitchen companion, Olivia, 11, joined chef Paula Labaki, from the Labaki Delishop sandwiches, to prepare the Burger Hooligan, the cook dish. He owned Meats, famous hamburger at Rua dos Pinheiros closed last year.

“Paulo Yoller was the guy who changed the history of the hamburger in Brazil,” said Labaki. “He did so much, but most of all he has done the best hamburger I have ever eaten.”

Hooligans was Yoller’s favorite, with oriental mayonnaise, cucumber pecles, American bacon, manioc bread, and a blend hamburger of beef, breast and neck reproduced in the tasta class.

“Paulo was a vanguard. He brought folder from Wasabi to mayonnaise for years, when Brazilians were starting to taste Japanese food,” said Lierson Mattenhauer, who also participated in the session.

The Taste SP 2025 ended with a class of Luiz Filipe Souza and Bianca Mirabili, chefs from Evvai, a two -star -awarded restaurant Michelin and also on the expanded list of the 50 best restaurants in 95th. At Taste, they taught the use of smoking in various ingredients, both sweet and salty.