Rua Treze de Maio is the main artery of Bixiga and the best place to feel the neighbourhood's Italian past. The street and the lanes around it are lined with old cantinas — Roperto, Speranza, Capuano, and others, some open since the 1920s — serving the long Italian-Brazilian weekend lunches that the district is loved for: bowls of pasta, veal parmigiana, jugs of house wine, and waiters who have worked the same tables for thirty years.
It is also the spine of the Festa de Nossa Senhora Achiropita, the August street festival when the whole area is given over to food stalls run by the parish, drawing crowds from across the city. Come hungry and unhurried, ideally on a Sunday afternoon, and let lunch run into the evening the way the locals do.