AFAR Magazine

How do you make sense of diverse, dizzying São Paolo? Talk to the people who make the sushi, spray the graffiti, and build the giant watermelons.

At the bar counter of Kinoshita, I hear cries of “Irashaimasen” (“Welcome,” in Japanese) from the kimono-clad hostess who greets customers at the sliding wooden door. The sushi men in front of me, all Japanese in appearance, slice colorful strips of fresh fish, press them into rectangles of rice, and lay them before eager diners. Everything around me tells me I am in Japan, but as soon as the chef, Tsuyoshi Murakami, appears with my next dish, the illusion is shattered. At rest, Murakami might look Japanese, but when he shakes his body like he is dancing the samba, gesticulates to mimic chopping off a fish head, and works himself into a lather over the most minute details of his cuisine, I am reminded I am not in Japan but Brazil. São Paulo, to be exact.

Though each piece of evidence is subtle, in total they are overwhelming. The sushi men whisper to each other in hushed Portuguese. Diners start their meal with a caipirinha. And if you look closely you can see the Brazilian inflections in Kinoshita’s otherwise very Japanese cuisine: a freshwater oyster you cannot find in Japan; a local momotaro tomato that tastes different from its Japanese counterpart; a composition of unagi (eel), foie gras, and crunchy green apple that you would never taste in Japan— or anywhere but Kinoshita.

As I bite into that unagi dish, Murakami expounds on the differences between Japan and Brazil. “Many chefs in Japan have small hearts,” he says, pounding his chest with his fist. Then, reaching below the counter, between his legs: “And small balls. They don’t want to share. They don’t want to open up. Things are different here. I didn’t have to spend 10 years sweeping the floor before I got to touch a grain of rice. I’ve been able to experiment with the foods, fruits, and tastes we have in Brazil.”

In his restaurant, Kinoshita, chef Tsuyoshi Murakami brings a samba sensibility to sushi.

São Paulo is arguably the most important city in Latin America and decidedly the most important place in Brazil. Tourists from the United States and Europe might flock to Rio, but for Brazilians, São Paulo—where the country’s music, magnates, and money all come from—is the center of the universe. Yet it’s not an easy place to understand. The city’s vast population of 11 million (19 million if you include the surrounding area) makes it the most populous metropolis in the Southern Hemisphere. This huge concentration of people is spread over a flat landscape with few landmarks to orient a visitor. Seemingly interchangeable high-rises stretch in some directions as far as the eye can see. Wide avenidas, more like freeways than avenues, topped with overpasses and fenced in by banked walls, bisect the city center. Low-flying helicopters make you feel like you are in the middle of a gang war in East L.A., circa 1984. (The helicopters are actually used to shuttle around wealthy residents who want to avoid traffic jams.) São Paulo is all but impossible to take in as a whole, and so, after a few disorienting days, I realized that if I wanted to comprehend and enjoy this place, I would need to find a way into its chaos and complexity. Talking with Murakami as he dances around my plate, I discover my gateway. The Japanese are one of the ethnic groups—along with Chinese, Koreans, Lebanese, Germans, Italians, and Portuguese—that make São Paulo the most cosmopolitan city in South America. In fact, the city has the largest Japanese community in the world outside Japan. I have always thought that one of the surest ways to cut to the heart of a culture is to see what immigrants make of it—what they take on and what they discard, how a city changes them and how they change the city. I have been to Japan many times and know something about that culture. So I decide to trace the culture of Japanese Brazilians in São Paulo. I will eat their food, meet their artists, walk their streets, and hang out at their bars. Perhaps that will be a way to crack the code of the city its residents call Sampa. Murakami excuses himself and I watch him work the room. He greets a male customer with a welcoming whoop, kisses the lady beside him, talks with sweeping gestures and constant body contact—a tap on the arm, a reach for the hand, a slap on the back. In Japan, even today, children and parents, brothers and sisters still bow to each other instead of embracing. As I watch Murakami manifest the many angles of his Brazilianness, it is hard to imagine that I could have chosen two more contrasting cultures to explore.