A Sao Paulo food tour: markets, Liberdade and what to take home

The Mercado Municipal, which everyone calls the Mercadao, was begun in 1928 and only opened in 1933.⁴ The delay has a story: before a single stall opened, the building served as an ammunition and weapons depot and as quarters for Sao Paulo troops in the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932.⁵ It finally opened on the city anniversary.⁶

Look up when you walk in. The stained-glass windows by Conrado Sorgenicht Filho show colonists planting, harvesting and raising animals, a picture of the farm economy that fed the young city.⁷ After a restoration handed over in January 2025, the hall covers 22,147 square metres and holds 256 boxes: delis, butchers, fishmongers and restaurants.⁸

It is busy. The city counts around 50,000 visitors a week, and in 2024 about 30% to 35% of them were tourists.^9,10 The Mercadao opens Monday to Saturday from 6 AM to 6 PM, and on Sundays and holidays from 6 AM to 4 PM.² Go early on a weekday if you want room to look at the fruit stalls properly. Saturday mornings bring shoppers from across the city stocking up for the weekend, which is lively to watch and slow to move through.

Liberdade is the city Japanese quarter, and it is easy to reach: the Japao-Liberdade metro station opens straight onto Praca da Liberdade, where stalls sell crafts and ornamental plants.¹⁶ From there the red lanterns of Rua Galvao Bueno lead into a neighbourhood of grocers, bakeries, ramen bars and shops selling everything from tea sets to stationery.

Sundays are the best of the things to do in Liberdade, Sao Paulo. Rua dos Estudantes, Rua dos Aflitos, Rua Americo de Campos and Rua Galvao Bueno close to cars from 9 AM to 4 PM on Sundays and holidays.³ Rua dos Estudantes fills with restaurants and street-food stalls serving East Asian food, and the queues are often long, so arrive hungry and patient.¹¹

Look for imagawayaki, a soft little cake filled with sweet azuki bean paste, sold at the fair by a family now in its 4th generation of sellers.¹⁷ Then walk off the snacks on the side streets, where Buddhist temples and old townhouses sit between the shopfronts. Our shared city tour also passes through the Japanese quarter on its way to the market.

The Mercadao is far from the only market in town. The city runs 14 municipal markets in all, spread across every region.⁷⁰ The first public market appeared in the 19th century in the Varzea do Carmo, near the Tamanduatei river, where it was known as the Mercado dos Caipiras.⁷¹ Today the newer markets serve their own neighbourhoods.

The Mercado de Pinheiros, in the west of the city, is where food lovers go next. It houses stalls run by well-known chefs, including Instituto Ata, which sells produce from 5 Brazilian biomes.¹² It is smaller and calmer than the Mercadao, and a good place to taste ingredients from the Amazon and the Cerrado that rarely reach menus abroad.

Then come the restaurants. Visite Sao Paulo puts their number at 20,000, alongside 30,000 bars and 52 different cuisines, and the city convention and visitors bureau calls it the gastronomic capital of Brazil.⁷² Pizza, sushi, Lebanese pastries and Brazilian barbecue all feel local here, and the city history credits waves of European, Asian and Arab immigrants with shaping it.⁷³

A simple plan works best. Start at the Mercadao for breakfast fruit and a coffee as the stalls open at 6 AM, then take the metro to Liberdade for lunch from the street stalls.^2,16 On a Sunday the city buses are free all day, which makes hopping between markets cheap.⁶⁹ On other days a bus fare is BRL 5.30, valid for up to 4 boardings within 3 hours.⁷⁵

Save the afternoon for Pinheiros or Vila Madalena, where a street-art walk and an early drink round off the day. If you would rather have the route planned, the 2-hour Liberdade food tour or the full-day city tour with its market stop take the guesswork away. Either way, leave room in the schedule: the best food moments in this city are the ones you stumble on between the planned stops.

Eat like a local and you will spend less: counters and market stalls cost far less than famous restaurants, and the queues tell you where the food is good. Order your own drinks and keep an eye on the glass in busy bars, as British advice suggests, and the city will feed you very well.⁷⁶ Tip in restaurants by checking the bill first, since many add a service line, and leave street vendors a smile and your thanks.