By Richard Jarocki | Updated September 2026
São Paulo Michelin Starred & 50 Best Restaurants 2026 guide: .São Paulo is one of the best food cities I have ever visited. I say that after eating my way through plenty of cities that get much more attention internationally. What keeps bringing me back is the range: you can have a serious three-star tasting menu one night, sushi at a tiny counter the next, a pork-focused tasting menu in Centro the night after that, and then finish the trip with cocktails and izakaya-style food somewhere completely different.
This guide started as a list of Michelin-starred and World’s 50 Best restaurants in São Paulo. It needed a full update. The city’s restaurant scene has changed, the Michelin rankings have changed, and the 50 Best lists need to be separated correctly. Michelin, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants and Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants are three different systems, and they should not be mixed together.
I have personally eaten at many of the restaurants in this guide, including Evvai, Tuju, D.O.M., A Casa do Porco, Nelita, Kazuo, Jun Sakamoto, Metzi, Kotori and Tangará Jean-Georges. Where I have been, I will tell you what stood out to me. Where I have not been, I will keep it factual and let the rankings speak for themselves.
Michelin-Starred Restaurants in São Paulo — 2026
The 2026 Michelin Guide was a major moment for São Paulo. Evvai and Tuju became the first restaurants in Brazil — and the first in Latin America — to receive three Michelin stars. D.O.M. holds two stars, and São Paulo currently has 13 one-star restaurants.
Three Michelin Stars
Evvai
Official website: Evvai
Chef Luiz Filipe Souza’s Evvai is my favorite restaurant in São Paulo and, at this point, one of my favorite restaurants anywhere. I have been more than once, and I am returning again because the experience keeps evolving instead of feeling like a tasting menu that simply repeats its greatest hits.
The Oriundi menu connects Brazil and Italy without making either side feel forced. The technical precision is obvious, but what I remember most is that the food still has personality. The Bomba de Vieira — the scallop course served directly onto your hand — is playful without becoming a gimmick. On another visit, dishes like duck tortellini with eel and tucupi and a green-corn ice cream cone with caviar showed exactly why this restaurant is operating at such a high level.
The illustrated cards that accompany the courses are another detail I love. They give you context without turning dinner into a lecture. Evvai feels serious about food while still remembering that dinner is supposed to be fun.
Tuju
Official website: Tuju
Tuju is a completely different experience from Evvai, which is exactly why I do not like comparing the two as if one needs to beat the other. Tuju feels like a temple of gastronomy. The building, service, pacing and menu are designed as one experience rather than a dining room with a tasting menu dropped into it.
Chef Ivan Ralston builds the menu around São Paulo’s seasons and rainfall patterns. When I visited, the Rain Season menu felt highly considered from beginning to end. The presentations were some of the most polished I have seen anywhere — almost couture-level — but the experience never felt cold. The restaurant’s three-floor progression, open kitchen and hospitality program are a major part of what makes Tuju different.
Two Michelin Stars
D.O.M.
Official website: D.O.M.
D.O.M. is one of the restaurants that helped put modern Brazilian fine dining on the international map. Chef Alex Atala built a restaurant around ingredients, traditions and ideas that many international diners had never encountered before.
My meal at D.O.M. felt more like discovery than simple luxury. I tried ingredients I would not normally order on my own, including insects, and I came away feeling like I understood a little more about Brazil than I did when I walked in. That is what makes D.O.M. important to me. It is not just about refinement; it is about teaching you something through the meal.
One Michelin Star
São Paulo’s current one-star restaurants are:
Fame Osteria
Jun Sakamoto
Kan Suke
KANOE
Kazuo
Kinoshita
Kuro
Maní
Murakami
Oizumi Sushi
Picchi
Ryo Gastronomia
Tangará Jean-Georges
Jun Sakamoto
Official website: Jun Sakamoto
I have been to Jun Sakamoto once, and the easiest way I can describe it is that you understand very quickly why he has the reputation he does. He is one of the names that comes up when people talk about the foundation of serious omakase in São Paulo. The counter is small, the focus is tight and the experience is about sushi craft rather than spectacle.
Kazuo
Official website: Kazuo
Kazuo was my first meal in São Paulo, which gives it a permanent place in my memory of the city. I have returned multiple times, including for lunch. What makes Kazuo different from Jun Sakamoto is range. Kazuo is not only about sushi; the menu moves across several Asian cooking traditions, and the kitchen is comfortable doing much more than one thing well. Even dessert surprised me there.
Tangará Jean-Georges
Official website: Tangará Jean-Georges
Tangará Jean-Georges is the more formal hotel dining experience on this list. I have followed Jean-Georges restaurants for years, so I wanted to experience his São Paulo restaurant inside Palácio Tangará. I ended up ordering à la carte rather than doing the tasting menu because of a table issue during that visit, but the setting and level of service are exactly what you would expect from a restaurant inside one of the city’s grandest hotels.
The World’s 50 Best Restaurants — São Paulo
The World’s 50 Best Restaurants global list is separate from Latin America’s 50 Best. That distinction matters because older articles — including the previous version of this one — can make it look like a restaurant’s Latin American ranking is its global ranking.
As of September 2026, the latest global list published by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants is the 2025 edition. No São Paulo restaurant appears in the global top 50, but two São Paulo restaurants appear in the extended 51–100 list:
A Casa do Porco — No. 83
Evvai — No. 95
A Casa do Porco
Official website: A Casa do Porco
A Casa do Porco is one of the clearest examples of why São Paulo dining is so interesting. It has international recognition, but it does not behave like an inaccessible luxury restaurant. Jefferson Rueda built the restaurant around pork and whole-animal cooking, and the experience is energetic, fun and approachable.
I visited in November 2024 and sat at the bar. There was a cachaça welcome, a full tasting menu and one of the most memorable presentations of the trip: crispy pork belly revealed beneath the restaurant’s colorful pig-head cloche. The point of the restaurant is not luxury for luxury’s sake. It is taking an ingredient many people think they know and showing how much can actually be done with it.
Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants — São Paulo
For someone planning a food trip to São Paulo, the Latin America list is just as useful as the global ranking because it captures more of the city’s depth. The latest published Latin America ranking includes four São Paulo restaurants in the top 50:
No. 8 — Tuju
No. 12 — Nelita
No. 20 — Evvai
No. 25 — A Casa do Porco
São Paulo also has six restaurants in the extended 51–100 list:
No. 55 — Kotori
No. 56 — Metzi
No. 67 — Maní
No. 73 — Cepa
No. 74 — D.O.M.
No. 93 — Notiê
Nelita
Official website: Nelita
Nelita is one of the São Paulo restaurants I recommend often because it feels personal. Chef Tássia Magalhães is especially strong with pasta, but the meal I had there was not limited to one style. Beef tongue was one of the courses that stood out, and I still remember the passion-fruit sorbet at the end.
The hospitality also mattered. Tássia and her husband, sommelier Daniel, made the restaurant feel connected to the people behind it rather than like a concept created in a boardroom. That matters to me more and more as I travel.
Metzi
Official website: Metzi
Metzi brings Mexican and Brazilian cooking together in a way that feels natural rather than like fusion for the sake of calling something fusion. I remember the pork-belly tacos, seafood tostadas and agave-based cocktails. I also had the chance to meet chef Eduardo Ortiz, which added another layer to the experience.
Kotori
Official website: Kotori
Kotori is smaller and more casual than several restaurants above it on this page, and that is part of the appeal. I have been once, and it fits perfectly into a São Paulo trip when you want excellent food without another long formal tasting menu.
How I Would Actually Plan a São Paulo Fine-Dining Trip
I would not book seven tasting menus in seven nights. I have made versions of that mistake before. At some point the meals start competing with one another, and you stop appreciating what is in front of you.
If this were a first serious food trip to São Paulo, I would build it around contrast. One night at Evvai or Tuju. One meal at D.O.M. for the Brazilian and Amazonian discovery side of the city. A Casa do Porco for something completely different. Then add a Japanese meal — Kazuo, Jun Sakamoto or another strong sushi counter — and leave room for places like Nelita, Metzi, Kotori or Tan Tan.
That mix gives you a much better picture of São Paulo than simply chasing stars.
Michelin vs. 50 Best: Which Ranking Matters More?
I do not think one ranking is automatically better than the other. Michelin is built around anonymous inspections and evaluates the cooking through a defined set of criteria. The 50 Best lists are voting-based and tend to capture restaurants generating excitement across the international dining community.
For me, they are both useful tools, not commandments. A star does not guarantee that you personally will love a meal, and a high ranking does not mean a restaurant is automatically better than the one below it. Some of my favorite restaurant memories came from places where the food, hospitality, city and timing all came together. That is impossible to reduce to a number.
Final Thoughts
São Paulo has become one of the cities I return to for the food as much as anything else. It now has Latin America’s first three-Michelin-star restaurants, a deep bench of one-star restaurants, and a strong presence across the 50 Best rankings. More importantly, it has range.
You can have military-level precision at Evvai, move through the different floors of Tuju, learn about Amazonian ingredients at D.O.M., sit at the counter at A Casa do Porco, eat pasta at Nelita, have sushi from Jun Sakamoto and finish another night at Tan Tan with a cocktail and 1990s hip-hop.
That is why I keep going back.
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