Z Deli Sandwich Shop — Restaurant in Região Imediata de São Paulo

4 stars becs I really liked the food & the joint itself has a nice modernist look. the rest not so good. let me elaborate. this deli is located at the ground floor of the IAB. it’s the institute of brazilian arquitects, a splendid modernist building by rino levi & associates that hosts, in its main salon, the back widow, an enormous mobile by calder. unfortunately the widow is seldom at home, frequently on tour. the building itself, until recently, was in very bad shape, but has passed thru a refurbishing rather respectful of its origiinal design, at the same time that downtown SP was slowly recovering its former bohemian flair. downtown SP at nite happily turned again into a hip place to go, after being deserted for years. the deli is located in the middle of the red zone area and it’s a safe place to walk but, if you have to wait outside, fuhgeddaboudit... the deli is really a looker; a perfect modernist shabby relaxed chic. every detail has been chosen to integrate perfectly the modernist soul of the building, without looking shiny new or fake modernist. a very nice host did the possible & impossible to accomodate quickly our party of 6. a bored-to-death waiter, soooo hip it hurts, wrote down our orders on his tablet, so everything arrived as ordered. the drinks are not good. mixology is an art still at its first steps in brazil, despite a lot of self conceided bartenders. to make a proper concoction it is not enough to splash a little of this and a little of that in a glass with LOTS of ice cubes. there are precise quantities of each ingredient. lame, watered spritz (come on! even a child can do a spritz). fake long island iced tea. decent whiskey sour and boulevardier. now the good part: food. everything has a nice look. my tongue sandwich, with home made bread, was incredibly, spectacularly, siderally delicious. rich, abundant, blessed with a creamy tartar sauce. forget new york’s delis, where the tongue sandwich looks like is still made during the depression years... the open pastrami sandwich, with thick slices of perfect pastrami, was at first puzzling for the thickness itself of the meat. after the first bite, no doubt whatsoever: it’s delicious, tender and the sour pickle is as jewish as woody allen. only the cole slow needs improvements. of the 4 burgers, only the chicken milanesa wasn’t an happy choice. the other were good as the fries are. good not GOOD, but we are rather spoiled nowadays in the burger dept.. will I go back again? no doubts! on a strictly no-alcool-only-beer-if-I-must philosophy, trying hard to hold myself and not to kick the bored waiter’s butt & wake his...

The servers (there’s like “20” of them) are a bit of a joke. They’re always “busy” and there’s always someone waiting while some of the 20 are kinda looking at the ceiling… there’s an atitude, I’ve asked for help and they were “brb” while giving me the hand lol, or to get our name for the waiting list the front door guy told us to seat aside, then was like “you come here give me your information” (he could’ve walked to us, we were literally a foot away). Food takes forever (that’s fine), but to put the order in is a fight, we had to “jump” on the server. Last time we were here (not the first time, food is actually good) they forgot about our order - it was ready and sitting for a while. So, all that to say, buckle up for “great” service if you...

I came here after experiencing the other locations. To start the host completely ignored me when I walked in and attended to 2 other tables before giving me a menu. It was only after I asked for management did someone ask if I needed help. Keep in mind the restaurants capacity is about 20 tables and only 7 tables were filled at the time I entered. I ordered the BBQ burger something I've ordered at other locations. The burger was unreasonably salty and with pepper and spices. I like the restaurant and generally i like the food but this experience will make me think twice about eating at this location. Pastrami fries were good and the management did seem genuine in their concern. But the salty burger made me leave...