The Jardins — 'gardens' — were laid out in the 1910s by the British planner Barry Parker, the same architect who had laid out Letchworth Garden City in England, as a low-density residential district on the slopes south of Avenida Paulista. The original logic — wide tree-lined streets, deep landscaped front gardens, no high-rises — has largely held. Today this is the most upmarket residential and shopping district in São Paulo and the home of the city's most ambitious restaurants.
The shopping spine is Rua Oscar Freire — the international fashion houses, the better Brazilian designers — with Alameda Lorena and Alameda Itu as the side streets. The food map of the Jardins runs from D.O.M. and Maní (fine dining of international stature) through Fasano (the city's grand Italian institution) to the long-running bistros and bars around Alameda Tietê. Walk from Paulista down through the Jardins toward Ibirapuera Park on a sunny afternoon — it is the most pleasant urban walk in the city.