São Paulo – Since November last year, a Lebanese restaurant is open in São Paulo’s Pinheiros neighbourhood. So far, so good, since there are plenty scattered around the city. The unique feature of the Balila, whose owners call it libanês.pop (lebanese.pop), is the fact that it combines traditional Arab recipes, fast-cooked dishes, and the ambience of modern-day Lebanon.
The restaurant, located on street Maria Carolina, boasts a modern, clean décor. Hanging from the walls, instead of old pictures of Lebanon, are paintings of today’s Beirut with its new mosque, of the port city of Saida, and of a trendy, bar-laden street in the capital, named Gemaize. The menu features traditional dishes, but also a wide variety of manouches – fast sandwiches that are very popular in Lebanon.
The owners, the Brazilians Adriana Doumet and Helen Edde, are married to Lebanese men and live between São Paulo and Beirut: a few months here and a few months there. Yes, they do so to take care of business, but also to tend to the family, part of which has remained in São Paulo. When they decided to open Balila, they were thinking precisely of the manouches. “They are very popular in Lebanon and I had never seen any one restaurant here offer several options,” Adriana told ANBA.
Balila also serves better-known options in Brazil, like the salads tabbouleh and fattoush, kebabs, i.e. grilled meats such as katfa with potatoes on the side, and kibbeh and safiha. But the way the foods are cooked follows a format tailored at Balila to be fast and easily reproducible at other units. The owners brought in a chef from Lebanon to cook the items on the menu. Presently, the kitchen is run by chef Carol Navarro.
There are manouches made with cheese, ground beef and tomato, plain ground beef, dry curd, tomato and lettuce; roasted falafel, with tarator sauce, parsley, tomato and turnip; loin and cheese with tomato and lettuce; labneh, with dry curd, tomato, cucumber, olives and mint; chicken and sumac, with hummus and tomato; spinach; and others. There are fully vegetarian options and all dishes are healthy, according to Doumet, in keeping with the green-heavy tenet of Mediterranean cuisine.
Apart from the aforementioned pictures, Balila boasts a modern panel bearing Arabic letters mixed with painted silverware. Right at the entrance, a humorous picture shows how to identify a Lebanese: if he says “yalla, bye” at least twenty times before hanging up the telephone, if half the passengers on the flight are his cousins, if his plate resembles a pool of olive oil and he hasn’t stopped pouring yet, among others.
Doumet says there is a strong demand for Arab food in Brazil. “It remains a large niche to be filled, especially in healthier, street-level fast food,” she says. Doumet and Edde hold degrees in Business Administration. They are considering opening another unit in São Paulo next year, a smaller shop in a popular street, with an even greater emphasis on sandwiches. Eventually, once they have two or three restaurants up and running in São Paulo, they plan on turning their business into a franchise.
Balila – libanês.pop
Maria Carolina Street, 674 – Pinheiros – São Paulo
Opens from Monday to Saturday from 12:00 pm to 3:00pm
Telephone: +55 11 3097 0802
Website: www.balilarestaurante.com.br
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
