Star City became incompatible with new Santa Cecília – 01/23/2024 – Food

The first time I stepped through the time portal into Star City’s old ballroom, my thought was, “I’ll give this place a week to close.”

I barely missed. There were only 30 years of difference between my prophecy and the closure of Star City, a monument to culinary nostalgia in São Paulo.

The restaurant announced, less than a week before the city’s anniversary, that it will never serve its infinite feijoada again.

I call Star City’s service system infinite feijoada. That first time, in the early 1990s, I was a little scared.

I had just served my first plate, and the waiter arrived. Without saying a word, he removed the bowl of beans and walked towards the back of the house. “Calm down, my dear! Where do you think you’re going?”

He returned in a few minutes with a bowl full. At Star City it was like this: when you started to think about the possibility of something running out, a waiter would appear to replace it.

It’s a type of service that was already out of favor at the end of the last century, surpassed by the boring sensibility of à la carte feijoada and the eat-until-you’re-ill buffet, which requires no intervention from waiters.

In addition to Star City, as far as I know, only two restaurants worked under this scheme. Gouveia, on Avenida Santo Amaro, is long gone. That left Bolinha, whose prices were always a bit prohibitive for me – due to the aristocratic location, in Jardim Europa.

Star City, on the other hand, was plebeian and welcoming, exuding charming decadence in a Santa Cecília that also seemed to have already seen its heyday.

The sign, with a proud “since 1953”, had perhaps been there since 1953. Before the door itself, there was a display case with bottles of whiskey weighing three, five, ten liters. As old as the house and severely sun-faded.

The room was small, with small tables (sideboards had to be brought closer together to serve the bean feast), some situated in niches with solid red leather benches.

The cloth napkins were artistically folded and positioned on the plates, already placed on the table before the customers arrived. Above the white tablecloth, there was another one in ocher color – the same shade as the cover on the back of the chairs.

All of this was already very old-fashioned 30 years ago, when I went there for the first time. The room was empty that night.

Yes, night. In good times, Star City offered seven days and seven nights a week of endless feijoada. It was a Saturday night when we decided to explore that curious little door, me and an ex-friend.

Yes, ex-friend. Just as good restaurants and endless feijoada end one day, the most solid friendships come to an end. It may hurt more than the end of a marriage, but let’s get back to Star City.

We went back there countless times, as the feijoada was very good. Not the best in Brazil, which would be a foolish pretension for a feijoada that was already infinite.

My friends and I had a fantasy about that feijoada. We imagined, at the back of the restaurant, a cauldron that was never completely emptied. We were afraid of one day visiting the kitchen and proving our hypothesis, which still seems plausible to me.

After many years away, I returned to Star City in 2022, to write a review. Everything was the same. The lounge, the whiskeys at the entrance, the feijoada and even the same waiters from my youth.

The chrome samovar was still there, from which came the lemon shake included in the infinite feijoada. I asked if it was still used, and the waiter Luís replied that it was only when the house was very busy. In other words, almost never.

Star City was immutable – that was its fascination –, but it needed to adapt throughout its long existence. As not even infinite feijoada is eternal, it succumbed to the transformations of the world, Brazil and its surroundings.

Santa Cecília, which I thought was decadent in the last century, has been reborn in such a way that it no longer admits the Star City in its inclusive modernity. Ageism? I do not believe. Just a cycle that closes.

Star City could have renewed itself and become a caricature of itself. He chose to perish with pride, after seven decades of excellent service to São Paulo. You have my respect.