Iconoclastic critic fillets São Paulo’s grand eateries

Determined not to start off on the wrong foot with Brazil's most notorious restaurant critic, I arrive in plenty of time for my lunch with Julio Bernardo at São Paulo's Jiquitaia restaurant.

Even so, he is there before me, seated at a table that gives him a view of the kitchen in this converted family home that has survived the transformation of its neighbourhood from sleepy suburb into a forest of high rises.

Julio's reputation is founded on the sort of reviews that inspire fear and loathing in chefs, but a fanatical following among readers of his blog boteco do jb.

In Europe and north America, devastating reviews of self-important establishments can make stars of critics, but this goes against the Brazilian grain in which cordiality is an overly prized trait.

At times in São Paulo it seems every establishment, from fine dining rooms to your local pizzeria, has at one time or another won some sort of award from Veja magazine or one of the other traditional arbiters of the city's dining scene.

Flash and gimmicky

But my lunch companion has no interest in joining this self-congratulatory chorus. Instead, he slams many of the city’s well-reviewed and pricier restaurants as flash and gimmicky, more concerned with their ostentatious decor than the food; places where the owner “called in an architect before hiring a chef”.

He disses Alex Atala – whose DOM is the city's perennial representative in lists of the world's top 10 restaurants – as "no longer a chef but a businessman promoting himself who is rarely found in a kitchen these days", and over a leisurely lunch happily rips into several more of the city's long cherished shibboleths about its food scene.

Slamming, dissing and ripping he may be, but in person the 40-year-old Julio is soft-spoken and funny. With his kind, round face, receding hairline and flowing black beard, which he strokes meditatively, he has the appearance of an Asian sage as he offers up his pearls of culinary wisdom.

But no matter how they are delivered, for some locals his views are sacrilege. Restaurants are close to the heart of São Paulo's self-image as Brazil's only cosmopolitan metropolis. Rio may have the beach, but paulistanos love to return from trips to the country's second city lamenting their inability to find a decent meal.

Yet the success of his blog shows many in São Paulo appreciate having an insurgent voice challenge the traditional narrative controlled by the city’s overwhelmingly conservative press. Despite not being linked to any popular online platform, boteco do jb gets more than 50,000 visits a month and the loyalty of his readership is attested to by the boost in custom a positive review – he does them – can deliver.

In his own way Julio is representative of a recent democratisation of Brazilian society, using the internet to break Big Media’s monopoly over information. In part his success is due to his determination to demystify dining out. He has no time for writing about how dishes are “sculpted”. But at heart it is because he understands food inside out – literally – in a way few of the city’s other critics can claim to.

Parents’ stall

He grew up working at his parents’ stall in one of São Paulo’s street fairs, deboning chickens and cutting up liver for customers. He abandoned school at 13 and tried his hand running a small wholesale business supplying produce to street traders and later opened his own restaurant, which was when he started the blog.

What he writes there is based on his intimate technical knowledge of how food should be selected, prepared and served. Even chefs concede he knows what he is talking about.

But Julio is not all cruel filletings complete with what might pass as his catchphrase: “O horror! O horror!” He is also an excellent guide on where to go, not just where to avoid, specialising in ferreting out lesser-known places that offer good value for money.

“Dining can be expensive and tedious in São Paulo but there still are many great places where you can eat well.”

After our excellent lunch – he chose the location – Julio says he might soon be returning to the kitchen himself. Fifty thousand readers a month do not generate any income for an independent blog and the money from the sale of his restaurant will not last for ever.

Perhaps then some of the city’s chefs will get their revenge. But for his readers, the good news is that even if he puts back on an apron he promises to keep reviewing his competitors.