The Bar Brahma is the bar that comes up in songs about São Paulo more than any other. It opened in 1948 on the corner of Avenida São João and Avenida Ipiranga, the most-famous urban crossroads in Brazilian popular music, and survived the long decline of the centro better than most of its neighbours. The interior is old-school: wood panels, mirrors, white-aproned waiters, a stage in the back room for the daily live music.
The samba and chorinho sessions in the back room start in the late afternoon and run until close to midnight. The food is bar food — pasteis, croquettes, feijoada on Saturdays — and the beer is the unsubtle local Brahma lager that the bar is named for. Come for the music, for the room, and for the sense of an institution that has been doing what it does for the better part of a century.