The Room
Arabia opened on Haddock Lobo in 1987, in a converted Cerqueira César townhouse with a small front garden, a mezze bar at the entrance, and one hundred and forty seats across two interconnected dining rooms and a covered terrace. Three decades on, the room remains one of the most reliable Lebanese institutions in São Paulo and the Cerqueira César address that the neighbourhood has been booking for two generations of family birthdays, anniversaries and Sunday lunches.
The interior is studied Lebanese-warm in the right register. Cream walls, mosaic tile detail at the entrance, framed photographs of Beirut in the seventies, 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 covered terrace at the front, with twelve tables under a small awning, is the seat to request on a clear evening.
Arabia draws a wider crowd than the older Almanara — Cerqueira César and Jardins regulars who book once a week, the after-work professional set who come for the mezze bar, the post-show theatre crowd on weekend evenings, and a steady international tourist set. The booking window holds at one week. The Sunday lunch service — Lebanese family lunch — is one of the most distinctive Middle Eastern Sunday tables in São Paulo.
The Food
The kitchen runs Lebanese-classical with serious discipline. The signature mezze for two — hummus, baba ghanoush, labneh, tabbouleh, fattoush, kibbeh, falafel and pita — is the order to make on a first visit. The grilled lamb chops, the shish taouk, the kafta, the mansaf (the Friday-only Jordanian-style lamb-and-rice dish), and the Saturday-only stuffed lamb are the five other dishes that account for most of the kitchen's output.
The mezze programme is the room's working flagship. Twenty-four cold and hot mezze rotate through the menu, with the cold programme prepared fresh each morning. The bread programme — pita, manakish, toasted flatbread — runs from a wood-fired oven at the back of the kitchen. The grilled-meats programme runs from a charcoal grill that the kitchen has been firing since 1990. Desserts lean Lebanese — a serious knafeh with cheese, the obligatory baklava, a competent ashta with seasonal fruit.
Wine list is Lebanese-led with serious Château Musar and Domaine Wardy references, a usable Argentine and Brazilian programme, and a small French upper register. The araq programme — eight references — is the order to take with the mezze. The Lebanese-coffee programme — cardamom-spiced — is the closer. Service is Lebanese-warm in the precise sense — career captains who walk first-time diners through the mezze programme with patience.
Best Occasion Fit
Team Dinner: Arabia is the Cerqueira César team-dinner default for the dinner that needs the mezze format — the long table at the back, the mezze programme for the table, the grilled-meats course, the araq programme, three hours that never feel like work. R$150 a head with two rounds.
Birthday: Arabia handles birthdays the way a Lebanese family restaurant should — a candle on the knafeh, 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 ten to twenty.
First Date: The covered terrace at Arabia on a clear evening is one of the most distinctly Cerqueira César first-date settings — Lebanese-warm, casual without being careless, and the bill is plausible at R$140 a head. The two-top in the corner of the terrace is the seat to request.