Carabineiro shrimp: where to eat in São Paulo – 02/27/2023 – Food

The carabineiro is the delicacy of the moment in Brazil.

By delicacy, we mean a rare food of exceptional quality. The combination of attributes results in an exorbitant price and consequent exclusivity —the latter, the only item for sale in the luxury market.

And put it exclusively on the carabineiro shrimp, common name of the aristaeopsis edwardsian. There is only one boat fishing for it in Brazil, in deep waters and far from the coast.

The kilo, in São Paulo, is sold for more than R$ 400. This value refers to the whole animal, with bark, legs, antennae, head and viscera. In restaurants, dishes with just one shrimp can cost R$180 or more.

He impresses. Large, it sports a bright red carapace. The taste, I’m told, is crazy.

“It has a strong taste of shrimp, but on the good side”, says Rodrigo Nojiri, from Kampomarino, distributor of prawns in São Paulo. Pertinent comment, as we have already been introduced to the strong taste of shrimp on the bad side.

Rodrigo says that the texture of the prawn meat is pleasant when raw — something rare in shrimp. And it is a consensus, among chefs, that the best thing is in the animal’s head.

The contents of the head are gastronomically known by the term “coral”, a euphemism: these are the internal organs of the crustacean. Sucking shrimp heads, a widespread practice in southern Europe, is frowned upon in Brazil.

Thus, our cooks make an effort to give the entrails a more “Itaim” appearance. While in Portugal and Spain the carabinero is dismembered at the table, by the customer, with his hands, here this is a backstage job.

The viscera are liquefied and, together with the broth extracted from the shell, they become a sauce called bisque, as red as the prawn itself.

The low supply of prawns, which justifies its high value, is not related to the size of the animal’s population. The carabineiro is known to oceanographers and marine biologists, who describe it as abundant on the coasts of the South and Southeast of Brazil.

The scarcity is due to the difficulty in fishing it. It inhabits the foothills of the continental slope, at depths ranging from 400 meters to over a kilometer.

Only one Brazilian vessel is in operation capable of lifting shrimp to the surface in commercial quantities: the Cordeiro de Deus, from Navegantes, in Santa Catarina.

The boat departs one hundred miles from the mainland and sails along the coast between Florianópolis and Cabo Frio (RJ), with a trawl net on the ocean floor, at a depth of 700 to 800 meters.

A trip lasts, on average, 30 days. The vessel does not have any resources to locate the shrimp.

“I’m going to have to map everything to find out which season and region has more fishing”, says Manoel Cordeiro, owner of the boat (get the pun?).

The real wonder of the Lamb of God is an onboard factory unit. There, the prawns are packed and frozen, arriving on dry land ready to be delivered to customers.

Despite the euphoria over the new manna, chefs still approach the ingredient with caution. They search for recipes that work in the gastronomic aspect and, very important, are accepted. if
a stock runs aground in the freezer, the damage is monstrous.

For this reason, the carabineiro is offered sporadically, as a part of the tasting menu or a special dish. Checking the restaurant beforehand is an imperative condition for anyone who leaves home on a mission to eat the delicacy.

The carabineer and I finally met in person at the Picchi restaurant—an Italian one on the glossy stretch of Rua Oscar Freire. There, a copy is sold for R$180 in a ticket that, when available, the waiter offers.

Chef Pier Paolo Picchi brings a plate of shrimp. The color almost hurts the eyes, but the size of the animals is a little disappointing.

After spending days on the internet looking for the carabineer, I didn’t expect anything less than a monster from “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”.

Picchi claims that the size varies a lot. “Sometimes the best is the biggest, sometimes not.” On the day of my visit, they were the size of a common pink shrimp. But they were red, red.

Biologist Cintia Miyaji, from the Paiche fish consultancy, says that the redness is an illusionistic trick of deep-sea shrimp, where light does not penetrate.

“The predators are those fish that generate light, and this light is usually green or blue”, he explains. “If the animal is red, it remains invisible.”

On the plate, red creates an impactful visual effect. Picchi prepares a bisque that turns into spaghetti sauce. The legs and antennae are fried, and the shrimp tail is served raw over pasta. “We take advantage of everything from the animal”, says the chef. The seasoning is minimal, so as not to interfere too much with the flavor: olive oil, a little thyme and a slice of Sicilian lemon.

I start eating from the fried legs, not unlike other shrimp. The raw meat of the tail and the bisque have a very special tchan. It’s a deep marine flavor, you can’t get away from the cliché. And delicate, without that trawler hold aftertaste.

Excellent, with one caveat. Again she, the expectation, accompanied me at lunch.

While I was looking for someone to serve the prawns, I spent a week fantasizing about a divine delicacy. It doesn’t exist, I know, but try to convince a glutton’s brain. If you’re up for it, two pieces of advice: lower your expectations and increase your card limit.

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Where to taste in São Paulo
As the offer fluctuates a lot, it is advisable to consult the establishments

TO EAT 

picchi restaurant
Rua Oscar Freire, 533, Jardim Paulista, west region. Phone: (11) (11) 3065-5560. Instagram @restaurantepicchi

Koya88 Restaurant
R. Jesuíno Pascoal, 21, Vila Buarque, central region. Phone: (11) 3384-6926. Instagram @koya88

keito pub
Av. Paulista, 854, Bela Vista, central region. Phone: (11) 3145-1741. Instagram @pubkeito

Imakay
R. Urussuí, 330, Itaim Bibi, west region. Phone: (11) 3078-7786. Instagram @imakaysaopaulo

TO BUY 

Fish La Ruiz
Phone: (11) 94340-1625. Instagram @fishlaruiz