Batel

Batel, in the southern part of Curitiba's centre, is the city's most cosmopolitan neighbourhood and the best place to spend an evening. The streets around Rua Amintas de Barros and Rua Bispo Dom José have a dense concentration of restaurants, wine bars, and craft beer spots. The cuisine is eclectic: Japanese-Brazilian, Middle Eastern, contemporary European, and upscale Brazilian regional.

The neighbourhood also has some good bookshops and the Palácio Avenida, a fine example of eclectic early 20th-century architecture housing a cultural centre and gallery. During the day the streets are pleasant to wander; at night, especially on weekends, they are very lively by Curitiba's relatively early-to-bed standards.

things to do neighbourhood
A story
Batel was once a quiet middle-class neighbourhood; in the 1990s and 2000s it transformed into Curitiba's most affluent district, with boutique hotels, high-end restaurants, and a dense concentration of bars and cafes along Rua Amintas de Barros and Rua Bispo Dom José. The shift happened quickly, and the neighbourhood still has an unfinished quality — glass towers beside 1960s apartment blocks — that gives it a slightly more interesting texture than a fully gentrified zone.