To eat at Cantina Castelões is to visit a São Paulo that otherwise now lives only in black-and-white photos: a time when warehouses sat alongside homes, and horses and trams ruled the streets. This was a city where every corner hid gastronomic specialities produced by immigrants from Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Portugal and Germany – all fleeing misery and war.
São Paulo’s oldest pizzeria, founded in 1924, serves the original São Paulo pizza, a mix of Roman and Neapolitan influences, sprinkled with Brazilian generosity. Big enough to feed four, the pizza has puffed, lightly toasted edges, elastic dough and, often, Brazilian toppings such as creamy Catupiry cheese, pulled chicken and corn alongside traditional ingredients. It’s this fusion that encapsulates the city.
São Paulo is so Italian that of its 12 million people, an estimated six million are of Italian descent. Its 4,500 pizzerias produce a million pizzas each day. In this city we are more familiar with bruschetta, basil and maiale (pork) than with ingredients from the Amazon like jambu, umbu or tucupi . And, yes, we “talk” with our hands. We wave them in the air to get the waiter’s attention over the buzz of conversation and sound of noisy families.
Castelões is no longer fashionable, doesn’t appear in guidebooks, and is away from the busiest axis of restaurants and bars. Its corner of town (Rua Jairo Gois, in Brás) is now rather dilapidated and dark (and a bit scary by night). But it’s still there, with its green and red neon lights, framed sun-bleached pictures of dishes, and tins and bottles stacked on dusty shelves.
At Castelões, waiters who have been there for 30 years still serve its many loyal customers. It still sells the pizza variety that bears its name – tomato sauce, mozzarella, thin-sliced calabresa sausage and oregano. It is loved by Paulistanos and considered a city treasure. Today, Castelões serves not only pizza, but nostalgia.
• casteloes.com.br
Extracted from Where to Eat Pizza by Daniel Young (Phaidon, £16.95)
