Fortunato Bar e Gastronomia in Vila Mariana

Fortunato Bar is located in São Paulo’s Zona Sul (South Side), at Rua Joaquim Távora, 1356, Vila Mariana (Instagram) — a Brazilian food bar.

We loved both the setting and the food, though we’d recommend arriving early, since we hit a long line — I tried booking through TheFork app, but reservations were only available for lunch, not dinner.

We’re covering two visits here: one dinner and one lunch.

The setting

Spacious, open, and airy, with good service — during the pandemic they used tablets for ordering, though on our more recent visit, post-pandemic, service was back to traditional waitstaff with paper menus.

Tables are still spaced out from pandemic-era habits, and there’s no live music, which makes it easy to actually talk and catch up. The outdoor section is great if you want to bring your pet, since it’s a pet-friendly restaurant.

The bar sits right in the center of the dining room, drawing plenty of attention and making the whole space look great.

Starters and small plates at Fortunato Bar e Gastronomia — dinner visit

To start, we ordered the creamy arancini, a delicious risotto ball (R$39) with house-made tomato sauce.

Filet mignon petisco with onions (R$119), served with bread, vinaigrette, and farofa — sides get refilled at no extra cost once they run out. I loved this dish; the meat was delicious.

Carne louca pastéis (R$39) — this was Lari’s favorite, genuinely delicious, generously filled, and I found the vinaigrette a great addition inside the pastel.

Filet mignon with a requeijão cream sauce — this one doesn’t need any sides, since the sauce was delicious with the meat.

Feijoada at Fortunato Bar e Gastronomia — Saturday lunch visit

Saturday is our tradition, so we ordered the house feijoada (R$112), which serves up to 3 people. Sides: rice, orange, breaded banana, farofa, tomato sauce, couve, fried polenta, fried calabresa sausage, and pork chop.

The pork chop had a nice, light seasoning, and the torresmo kept the meat and fat nicely separated, exactly the way we like it — we’d highly recommend trying it.

For dessert, we ordered the dulce de leche churros (R$26) and the leite ninho pudim with Nutella (R$26) — both delicious, so it’s genuinely hard to choose, and there’s a huge dessert menu to explore.

Read about more bars in Elidio Bar.