The Room
Almanara opened on Oscar Freire in 1950 — and seventy-five years on, it remains one of the longest-running Lebanese institutions in São Paulo and the address the city's Lebanese-Brazilian diaspora has been booking for three generations. The room sits in a converted ground-floor space with a long mezze bar at the entrance, an open grill at the back, and one hundred and twenty seats across the main dining room and a small terrace.
The interior is studied Lebanese-warm. Cream walls, framed photographs of Beirut in the seventies, mosaic tile detail at the entrance, candle lamps on every table, and the obligatory mezze counter where the day's fresh hummus, baba ghanoush and labneh are visible from the dining room. The terrace at the side, under a small awning, holds another fifteen seats and is the seat to request for the weekday lunch.
Almanara draws a generationally mixed Lebanese-Brazilian crowd — long-time Av. Paulista regulars who have been booking for decades, the after-work professional set who book the mezze bar before dinner, and the steady tourist set who recognise the room from one of the city's historic-restaurant lists. The booking window holds at one week. The Sunday lunch service — Lebanese family lunch — is one of the most generous Middle Eastern Sunday tables in São Paulo.
The Food
The kitchen runs Lebanese-classical with the discipline of a seventy-five-year institution. The signature mezze for two — hummus, baba ghanoush, labneh, tabbouleh, fattoush, kibbeh nayyeh, falafel and the obligatory pita bread — is the order to make on a first visit. The grilled lamb skewers, the shish taouk, the kafta, and the Friday-only stuffed-vine-leaves family platter are the four other dishes that account for most of the kitchen's output.
The mezze programme is the room's working flagship. Twenty cold and hot mezze rotate through the menu, with the cold programme prepared fresh each morning and the hot programme run from the open kitchen behind the dining room. The bread programme — pita, manakish, the obligatory toasted seasoned flatbread — runs from a small wood-fired oven that has been firing since 1985. Desserts lean Lebanese — a serious baklava, the obligatory ma'amoul, a competent muhalabieh.
Wine list is short and Lebanese-led — three Château Musar references, a usable Argentine and Brazilian programme, and a small French upper register. The araq programme — six references — is the order to take with the mezze course. Service is Lebanese-warm in the precise sense — career captains who walk first-time diners through the mezze programme with the patience the form requires.
Best Occasion Fit
Team Dinner: Almanara is the working São Paulo team-dinner default for the dinner that needs the mezze format — the long table at the back, the mezze for the table, the grilled-meats course, the wine programme, two and a half hours that never feel like work. R$140 a head with two glasses.
Birthday: Almanara handles birthdays the way a Lebanese family restaurant should — a candle on the baklava, a small araq from the bar, the mezze for the table, the small acknowledgement at the table without ceremony. The round table at the back holds parties of eight to fifteen.
First Date: The terrace at Almanara on a clear afternoon, with Oscar Freire passing outside, is one of the most underrated Av. Paulista first-date settings — Lebanese-warm, casual without being careless, and the bill is plausible at R$130 a head with mezze. The room is the working argument for São Paulo's Lebanese diaspora institutions.