Latin America's First Three Michelin Stars
São Paulo's Evvai and Tuju

← Back to Latin America News

On April 13, 2026, at the ceremony for the MICHELIN Guide Rio de Janeiro & São Paulo 2026, held at the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro, two São Paulo restaurants were awarded three stars: Evvai and Tuju. They are the first three-star restaurants in the history of Latin America, and Brazil joins a global list of fewer than 160 three-star establishments for the first time. It is the moment a food culture that multiethnic São Paulo has nurtured over decades reached the highest mark in the world.

What the Highest Honor Means

A Michelin three-star rating is described as cuisine worth a special journey. Anonymous inspectors visit several times, judging the quality, originality and technical mastery of the cooking, and above all its consistency. Moving from one or two stars up to three is an exceptionally high step: it asks not for a single success but for the same standard held year after year.

What Evvai and Tuju Embody

Evvai sits in the Pinheiros neighborhood of São Paulo and is led by chef Luiz Filipe Souza. Built on a contemporary Italian cuisine that reconnects the cooking brought by Italian immigrants with Brazilian ingredients and memory, its courses tell the story of a land shaped by migration.

Tuju, in Vila Madalena, is the restaurant of chef Ivan Ralston. Across three floors, its tasting menus keep shifting as they follow Brazil's seasonal biological rhythms (phenology) and explore the country's ecosystems. The attention to research and cultivation behind the kitchen points to Ralston's stance as someone who studies food, not merely cooks it.

How São Paulo Became a Food Capital

In Latin America, Peru's Central and Colombia's Leo have long featured on the World's 50 Best list and driven gastronomy tourism. São Paulo follows in that current, layering contemporary technique onto a foundation of many peoples and cultures to build a position of its own. A diversity of food in which Japanese, Italian, Middle Eastern and African-rooted cooking mingle is a direct reflection of the city's makeup. Michelin established a guide covering Rio and São Paulo relatively recently, and these three stars feel like that accumulation crystallizing at once.

Gastronomy as Diplomacy

Gastronomy now plays a part in cultural diplomacy. A three-star rating works as a powerful magnet that turns a city into a destination. In the same current in which Latin American countries have pushed food as a national tourism strategy, these stars are a major chance for Brazil to raise the brand power of the city. With international attention rising, the timing of the announcement looks like a tailwind too.

The Author's View

To my eye, these three stars are not simply a story of two excellent restaurants opening. Both Evvai and Tuju translate onto the plate a story unique to this city and this country: the memory of migration, the ecosystems of the land. What stands at the very top of a global scale is not an imported style itself, but the specificity of São Paulo as a multiethnic city. That is the interesting part.

At the same time, a three star remains a height only a few can experience. How far does such dazzling recognition flow back to the wider food culture of the city, and to the producers and workers who sustain it? The more glamorous the news, the more I want to follow it to that further point.

Glossary

Gastronomia (Portuguese for gastronomy) refers to food culture and fine dining; it is the word used when, as with Evvai and Tuju, cooking is discussed in relation to culture and place. Fenologia (phenology) is the seasonal rhythm of living things, such as the flowering and fruiting of plants, and it forms the axis of how Tuju builds its menus.

Food is the memory of migrants and the portrait of a city: São Paulo's three stars say so quietly.

※ This article is the author’s commentary based on public information. Please confirm the latest figures, dates and procedures with governments and primary sources. Quotations are kept minimal and sources are cited.