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tl;dr – While in São Paulo, I sat down at one of the city’s more buzzy restaurants – Evvai. Despite a vibrant, whimsical theme, I found the food more show than substance and don’t think I would return.
Evvai is a two-star Michelin restaurant located in the Jardins of São Paulo. Chef Luiz Filipe Souza elevates local Brazilian ingredients and methods with modern Italian flair to create a zippy-tasting menu experience. I first learned about Evvai while perusing the World’s 50 Best Restaurants – Latin America list alongside other notable restaurants like D.O.M. Intrigued by a menu that artfully melds Brazil and Italy, I reserved two seats. There’s generally good availability, and you can make a reservation through the restaurant’s website.
My Evvai Dining Experience
Ambiance & Theme
Walking through the doors of Evvai, you enter into quite the convivial atmosphere. Bouncy 80s music reverberates off the ceilings. A large marine blue wall with porthole-like mirrors accents wooden tables to create a scene reminiscent of a cruise ship. A glass window at the rear of the dining room offers views into the busy kitchen. We were seated at a spacious table, with napkins covering the night’s menu.
Inside of Evvai and our table – Source: You Are Travel & Google
From the jump, I knew this would be one of the showier tasting menus I’ve had. The chef is a comic book fan and quite a talented artist, so each course comes with a card with an elaborate drawing on one side and a description of the food on the other. The cards were cool at first, but as there were quite a few courses, it got tiring as the meal wore on.
Yoda with sunglasses – Source: You Are Travel
The chef as superman eating a salad as I believe he’s vegan – Source: You Are Travel
Food & Wine
Starting out on a high note. Bread service was a my favorite course of the night. The bread was made of cassava and served with passion fruit butter, olive oil and a locally made prosciutto. On the side was a traditional Brazilian pão de queijo.
Bread service at Evvai – Source: You Are Travel
There’s an option to do a beverage pairing alongside the tasting menu, and after a bit of back and forth, we decided to dive in. It wasn’t the best decision. Typically, when I elect for a pairing, I do so after I’ve gotten my eyes to see a few (if not all) of the selections offered so I have an idea of what to expect. We went in cold, and on this night, the selection featured a curiously high number of fortified wines, all of which overpowered the dishes they accompanied.
The food was a letdown. Evvai knocks it out of the park when it comes to beautiful presentations, but the food lacks pop. Over the course of the night, there wasn’t a single memorable course. Actually, that’s not true. This selection, the Colatura Scallop Bomb, didn’t agree with me to the point where it was stomach-turning.
Additionally, the meal felt long, and each additional middling course time seemed to slow down. We lost our appetites long before the meal concluded.
A smattering of the other courses – Source: You Are Travel
And at some point, they dropped the obligatory smoky-molecular-gastronomy-thing on the table and it had those waxy apples you find in hotels gyms on it. Unclear what was going on this course. No one explained anything, they just dropped the aggro crag apples and walked away.
Apples as a whole are a bottom 5 fruit – Source: You Are Travel
Some days after the meal, I looked up some reviews to gauge whether my experience was an outlier and noticed Evvai used to offer a more traditional a la carte menu. The dishes and reviews seemed much stronger in that era.
Service
The service was commendable. All the servers took time to explain the ingredients, techniques, and directions for every course – except the one with the smoky apples.
Conclusion
I came into Evvai with a lot of excitement for the meal, and while I applauded the creativity, the meal was disappointing. That said, Evvai isn’t worth it in the general sense – it’s clear the team puts a lot of effort into crafting each course, and the service is solid. Maybe I just didn’t rock with the flavors, so I want to leave space for personal preference. Perhaps if you dine there, you’ll find it a standout experience. 🤷🏿. If you’ve been, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
