São Paulo – Lebanese restaurant Em Sherif will open a branch in São Paulo, its first in Latin America, later this year. It will be at the Cidade Matarazzo complex, which is being built and open in stages near Avenida Paulista. According to the Cidade Matarazzo’s MFoods CEO Cesar Antonelli, the opportunity to bring the restaurant to São Paulo came from the complex’s founding partner, French entrepreneur Alexandre Allard, who is a lover of Arab cuisine and a patron of the restaurants of the brand in the Middle East and Europe. (Pictured, a brand of the restaurant.)
“In the latest visits together with the founding partner of Em Sherif, the idea came up to bring it to São Paulo. Following some back-and-forth negotiation, we reached a deal to make MFoods [the food and beverage arm of Cidade Matarazzo] the exclusive partner for developing the restaurant in Brazil,” says Antonelli.
Em Sherif was founded in 2011 in Beirut by chef Mireille Hayek and her brother Dany Chaccour. The name means “Sheriff’s mother,” Sheriff being Hayek’s son. The venue specializes in Eastern cuisine but honors particularly the Lebanese cuisine with recipes that bring the flavors of the Mediterranean and the memory of the Arab country. It has branches in Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and London, England.
The branch in São Paulo, says Antonelli, will be at a prime location at Cidade Matarazzo. “The menu will have dishes unique to Em Sherif. Any adaptation will have to be previously discussed and approved by the global chefs, so that their traits and uniqueness are preserved,” says the CEO, pointing out that the restaurant is part of the second phase of launchings of Cidade Matarazzo, which will also feature other 25 gastronomic attractions.
Cidade Matarazzo is a venue that brings together a luxury hotel, cuisine, a mall, a cultural space with a theater, a chapel, a spa, a residential building, and an office building where the Hospital Umberto I and Maternidade Condessa Filomena Matarazzo had operated until 1993. In 2011, it was bought by French entrepreneur Alexandre Allard with the purpose of restoring old buildings and construct new ones. The openings have been carried out in stages – the hotel is already in operation.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
