INTERNATIONAL EDITION / Volume 01PEOPLE, CULTURE & A WIDER WORLD
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WAYFARER

THE CURATED GLOBE.

Reportage / São Paulo

SEEN São Paulo: sweet and heat share the plate

A 2025 menu used fruit, honey and chilli to explore a combination older than its fashionable shorthand.

SEEN São Paulo: sweet and heat share the plate
/ Image from the WAYFARER Brazil archive.

Sweetness and chilli do not need a new name to work together. The label swicy gave an established combination a contemporary shorthand; SEEN São Paulo used it as a way to describe several dishes in its 2025 menu.

WAYFARER’s April account placed the restaurant at Tivoli Mofarrej, with Olivier da Costa’s menu executed by chef Gizely Rocha. The city view supplied the setting, but the relevant contrast happened on the plate.

Fruit beside the sharper note

Taco Seen paired marinated fish, guacamole and red cabbage with mango and pomegranate, then introduced spicy Japanese mayonnaise and fish roe. A lamb croquette combined Dijon mustard, curry, honey and mango.

Elsewhere, breaded goat’s cheese met sweet-chilli sauce. A wagyu burger used sweet-and-sour onion beside the more familiar brioche, cheddar, leaves and pickles.

The examples show different roles for sweetness. It could arrive through fruit, a condiment or a cooked onion, each affecting texture as well as flavour. Heat did not need to occupy the entire dish to remain noticeable.

The prices and preparations in the original report belong to April 2025. They are not reproduced as a current restaurant guide. The broader point is that a useful culinary contrast need not be newly invented: a kitchen can change its expression through proportion, ingredient choice and the form in which it reaches the table.


Adapted from the WAYFARER Brazil archive, first published 2025-04-14. English adaptation: 6 October 2026. This is an archival account, not a report of a new visit. Exhibitions, collections and menu details are described in their original context, not as current availability.

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