Astor: the corner bar opens a wider room

A corner can give a bar its social shape. Astor’s Vila Nova Conceição opening, described in April 2025, used glass, an outdoor deck and a central counter to make that relationship visible.

Architect Otávio De Sanctis and landscape designer Luiz Carlos Orsini shaped the space around preserved trees, dark woods, patterned tiles and Art Deco lighting. The counter offered service on all sides. These choices carried the familiar Astor vocabulary into a larger room without reducing the address to a copy of its predecessors.

Head bartender Alex Sepulchro’s Nouveau Cocktail Propaganda menu looked towards the memory of hotel bars and older cocktail forms. A Dry Dirty Sweet combined gin, fino sherry, vermouths, an olive filled with gorgonzola and orange bitters. Guava and cashew fruit introduced a different register, while forgotten classics such as the Mary Pickford returned to the conversation.

Chef Ligia Karazawa’s food menu drew on the same balance of recognition and revision. Pastrami pastéis appeared beside cod fritters and the house’s picadinho. The dishes and drinks belong to the launch account, not a current menu survey. What remains is a useful portrait of an institution adjusting its scale: the room grows, the references multiply, but the bar still begins with the corner.