At the oldest ramen in Liberdade, the queue never ends (and you will wait) – 08/08/2023 – Pitaco Cultural

The location is easy to access: just turn right and go down three blocks after exiting the Liberdade subway. Opening hours are set: from Tuesday to Sunday; for lunch starting at 11 am and for dinner at 6 pm. But the truth is that it doesn’t matter how or how early you arrive – the queues at Aska Ramen, the most traditional and oldest ramen house in São Paulo, will always be there.

It’s easy to tell if you’re in the right place: just see the crowd of people forming on the sidewalk, in front of the blue awning, on the ground floor of a graffitied building. One by one, customers arrive and leave their name on the list – entry there is on a first-come, first-served basis. The employee’s turn is announced via gogó: “Luiz. Luiz. Luiiiz”. And if Luiz doesn’t answer, he loses his turn to José. Which precedes Maria, and so on.

Customers, many regulars, seem not to mind waiting to eat any of the recipes that have been on the menu for 23 years. “Before, I used to stand up. Now, I come prepared and it’s no longer a problem”, reports Ana Santos, 54, who removed a portable stool from her bag-bag. From the same bag came the book that she was reading calmly while waiting for the “Anaaa” to be sung.

Aska’s menu, which can be accessed by cell phone while waiting, is also emphatic: “please vacate and give your place to the next customer”. After all, steaming broth, home-made pasta and empathy with the next person in line are the spices of the restaurant – which also has the added bonus of having one of the most attractive prices in town (bowls cost around R$30 ).

Of course, every success is also due to the tradition and memory of Takeshi Ito, founder of the house, who died in February at the age of 80. Discreet, he didn’t like to give interviews, and spoke only once to Jo Takahashi, author of the book “Ramen / Ramen”.

To him, Ito confessed that he moved from Japan to Brazil at a young age, but that it was only after retiring that he realized his dream of having a restaurant. And that, “so as not to make a mistake”, he copied the recipe for stewed pasta from a stage he made in his homeland. He risked opening a ramen restaurant in São Paulo – this in the early 2000s, when the boom around here was sushi, sashimi and their correlates.

The house won and remains disputed. The proof is the queues, the hall is always full and the reddened faces after sipping bowls of sizzling (and divinely seasoned) miso, soy sauce and shiô. Pinched by chopsticks, strands of homemade pasta and slices of tender pork disappear between the lips.

And then it doesn’t matter the waiting time, the “eat and go” on the menu or the affectionately annoying warning from the waiter (who, on weekends, requests that the kitchen order be placed at once, without the right to repeat, to expedite service). After all, in Liberdade’s most traditional ramen, rotation is the key.

Customers leave, but they come back. Without too many roundabouts.

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Aska Lamen. Rua Galvão Bueno, 466, Liberdade. Tuesday to Sunday, from 11 am to 2 pm and from 6 pm to 9 pm. Closed on the last Sunday of the month.

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