Holy Tavern: a small room built around the fire

A small restaurant can reveal its point of view before the first dish arrives. Holy Tavern’s August 2026 São Paulo presentation described twenty-three places within a room of dark wood, exposed brick and reddish tones.

Filipe Fernandes, Gabriel Prieto and Thyago Lemos developed the project after Holy Burger. Personal portraits and serving objects sourced from New York supplied details that made the tavern reference more particular.

Fih Fernandes’ kitchen centred on a charcoal oven, with preparations including aged-beef carpaccio, moules frites and tongue pastrami. Mariana Mota’s desserts returned to papaya with cassis and chocolate soufflé.

The short menu and compact room proposed the same kind of concentration. Rather than reproducing a whole city, the New York reference became a set of decisions about scale, material and the relationship between a bar and a kitchen.