Is a good bar a good bar? – 01/26/2024 – Gross Kitchen

A video recently circulated on social media of a bar called Galo, in Pinheiros. Top-notch entertainment, both for the film itself and for the comments.

The video shows the sidewalk taken over by a crowd of typical São Paulo playboys, who drink standing up, sitting on beach chairs or propped up on beer crates.

The narrator states that Galo “is a very basic place, like a bar”. A place, according to the influencer, for those who like “the hustle and bustle of standing”, defined as “crowded and hot”.

The comments pluck the Rooster. In short, they say that it is about São Paulo residents performing an immersive experience of drinking in a poor man’s bar, but without one inconvenience – the poor man.

I am a Paulistano, I can’t help but agree.

O Galo is a caricature bar, a themed attraction, a scenographic bar. Something that exists a lot in São Paulo, but it wasn’t born here, it wasn’t invented yesterday nor is it restricted to bars.

There are also restaurants as authentic as a R$3 note. Like Paris 6 (caricatured representation of France), Outback (ditto for Australia) and all those cantinas in Bixiga, with tarantella in the last one, wines and provolones hanging from the ceiling .

The birthplace of this type of house – or at least the land where it thrives most – is the United States of America.

The most ridiculous restaurant I’ve ever set foot in is a certain Medieval Times, an American chain that combines dinner with a knights in armor tournament. Even horses are embarrassed by the slap and, in my defense, I say that I was 15 years old and was on an excursion.

Themed bars and restaurants are always a little caricatural, but there is a gradation in the ridiculousness of the thing.

Moela and Bagaceira, both in Santa Cecília, are “bars” as fake as Galo. In them, however, the trick is less scandalous and – a factor of maximum relevance – the food shines.

In fact, an authentic place (or “root”, as is in vogue) is not necessarily better than a business calculatedly built on an alien identity.

Coco Bambu, for example, radiates authenticity. It was created in Ceará by a Ceará native and serves Ceará food. It is good? I do not think so. You are free to disagree.

On the other hand, all of Cia. Tradicional de Comércio’s brands –Pirajá, Bráz, Astor, etc.– are, you see, brands.

All of them, very well structured simulacra of other bars and restaurants. Zero authenticity, but they deliver above average quality.

The Filial bar, in Vila Madalena, where I and half the rest of the world used to do business in the 2000s, was an imitation of some kind of old grocery store, which never really existed in that format. Nothing root. And a great bar, in its first incarnation.

What cannot be done is to be fake to the limit of the absurd, offering a beach chair, a case of beer, overcrowding, extreme heat and a meow steak barbecue at Pinheiros prices.

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