There is no better time than now to visit São Paulo, which has emerged as Brazil's most fashionable city.

For the settlers, the opening of Avenida Paulista, the most renowned street in São Paulo, on a ridge 328 feet above sea level south of the city center in 1891 offered a respite from the heat and hustle of a newly thriving provincial town. Approximately 65,000 people called São Paulo, a new commercial post for the neighboring coffee fields, home during that period. However, the city's population grew in the late 1800s, when exports peaked. Coffee barons and manufacturers constructed houses in an eclectic mix of foreign styles on enormous pieces of land in Paulista, which offered fresh air, a broad promenade, and a lot of space. It was also an effort to "emulate the life of the country inside the city," as architect and photographer André Scarpa informed me on a muggy summer morning in February.

In the midst of the bustling Paulista crowd, with the towers and cars rushing by, I couldn't help but chuckle. After all, this boulevard is the backbone of a metropolis with 22 million inhabitants that makes my hometown of Mexico City appear like a sleepy little town. The glass and concrete prism of the MASP, the epochal São Paulo Museum of Art designed by Lina Bo Bardi, hung over an open plaza. Among its square-shouldered neighbors, the pyramidal FIESP Cultural Center, designed by architect Rino Levi, leaned back just a block away. Close by, the sleek Paulicéia skyscraper, created by émigré Frenchman Jacques Pilón and Italo-Brazilian Gian Carlo Gasperini (together with Levi and Bo Bardi), clashed with the sly horizontal stripes of the Torre Paulista, a structure built by José Gugliotta and Jorge Zalszupin, who was born in Poland. There might not be a city on this planet that is more blatantly contemporary. 

The advent of modernism was heralded precisely one hundred years prior to my attendance at Semana de Arte Moderna 22. Some claim that the week-long event—which took place during Brazil's centenary anniversary of independence from Portugal—launched the modernism movement in the country by bringing together writers, composers, and visual artists. It featured a group exhibition by prominent artists like as Anita Malfatti, who used Cubist abstraction and Fauvist vividness to portray Brazilian themes. 

"Cannibalism alone unites us," was the first line of the seminal "Manifesto Antropófago" ("Cannibalist Manifesto"), written by modernist poet Oswald de Andrade, who was born in São Paulo and released six years later in 1928. In terms of society, the economy, and philosophy. The voracious and irreverent appetite for the world, as well as the cultural metabolism that could synthesize global influences and convert them into something singular and fresh, constituted modern Brazilian identity. It was a winking cry de coeur. 

Scarpa and I stood on Paulista, staring down into a canyon of steel and cement. Along the boulevard, the towers jutted out like teeth, some of them created by Brazilians of second generation and some by foreigners. Sunlight and rain, as well as the incessant flow of people from all over the globe, engulfed the metropolis like a gaping maw. 

Although it is not an uncontroversial claim, I believe that São Paulo is the most beautiful city in the world. My initial impressions of Brazil's financial capital were shaped by a 2007 New York Times travel piece that glibly stated that the city "may be the ugliest, most dangerous city you'll ever love." It was a major influence on my first visit in 2011. In order to reach the observation deck atop the Farol Santander—a hefty white riposte to the Empire State Building—I skipped the rest of the city and headed right to the historic center, a tightly packed zone of Art Deco and Neoclassical skyscrapers, many of which were in a state of disrepair. With its towers protruding from a maze of traffic-choked streets, the metropolis extended out beneath me like an endless concrete savanna. When viewed from above, São Paulo had the impression of being both dull and disturbed. 

São Paulo, like to other large Latin American cities, has been gradually growing outside of its old town for quite some time. It has extended eastward through middle-class areas such as Bom Retiro and Moóca, and southward through the mansions of Jardins, a rich suburb below Paulista. The wealthiest people in São Paulo sought luxury by escaping the city center. They made their homes in bland apartment buildings in verdant suburbs and spend their weekends at resorts like the Palácio Tangará, which opened in 2017 in the tranquil Parque Burle Marx jungle. Tangará Jean-Georges, the hotel's posh restaurant created by Jean-Georges Vongerichten and headed by executive chef Filipe Rizzato, serves elegant cuisine as guests relax with beverages by the pool. 

However, the revitalized districts gathered around the public square known as Praça da República are once again becoming the focal point of the city today. The recently inaugurated Rosewood São Paulo implies the rising power of the metropolitan center. The hotel, located in an Italianate mansion that served as the city's main maternity unit for half a century, is a living monument to Brazil's curvaceous mid-century architecture; artwork by 57 Brazilian artists from the modern era adorns every surface. As night falls, the drive is choked with shiny BMWs and high-heeled city dwellers who are fighting for tables at the hotel's restaurants and bars, such as Rabo di Galo, where they can hear live jazz, and Taraz, where they can enjoy pan-Latin cuisine. 

Gentrification in the city center, like in many other major cities across the world, has brought to light the existing fundamental disparities in Brazilian society, with inequalities generally based on race, class, gender, and sexuality. In communities such as Vila Buarque, Santa Cecília, and República, the shortcomings are clearly visible, but there are also boundless opportunities. A group of locally focused companies reopened in July 2021 in a long-vacant structure in Vila Buarque that had been bordered by an elevated highway. Chef Pablo Inca, who hails from the Andean highlands of Argentina, uses traditional ingredients that were once stigmatized by high-end chefs and their clients—things like okra, beans, and offal—in his meals at Cora, a rooftop restaurant. 

Inca informed me that, prior to a few years ago, Vila Buarque would not have been the most fitting location for a restaurant of this type, as the inside dining room's corrugated metal roof became a snare drum during a fierce summer storm. "Many individuals still perceive this region as somewhat taboo, somewhat provocative," he remarked. The light crudo of prejereba fish with sweet, astringent cashew fruit; the rich fugazzeta, resembling an oozing cheese-and-onion pastry; and the charred okra scented with za'atar are all examples of the colorful and savory cuisine served by the Incas. "The movement and chaos of São Paulo, rather than its landscapes, are what truly captivate visitors," Inca went on to say. The world is constantly evolving. 

On my way out of Cora that afternoon, I took a leisurely stroll through Higienópolis, a residential neighborhood lined with ultra-modern apartment buildings screened by rubber trees and philodendrons. The adjacent neighborhoods of Santa Cecilia and Vila Buarque are home to a mix of coffee shops, galleries, hardware stores, and old-school botecos. There are also casual bars with standing-only counters, perfect for enjoying a cold beer or my go-to Brazilian breakfast: a shot of overly strong coffee, cheese buns made with gummy tapioca flour and pão de queijo, and a glass of vibrant purple açaí juice to beat the morning heat. 

The sun was setting, so I grabbed a bite to eat and a drink at Bar da Dona Onça, located on the ground level of the famous Copan building—the biggest apartment complex in Brazil. (Due to its immense size, the tilde-shaped tower is assigned its own postal code.) Janaína Rueda, a chef who grew up in the heart of São Paulo, launched Dona Onça as a tribute to the iconic downtown nightclubs where her mother had been a publicist during her childhood. Inside, amid the wood paneling, patrons sip caipirinhas accompanied with perfectly cooked chicken croquettes (coxinha) and fritters made with spinach and cheese (bolinhos de espinafre e queijo). After decades of neglect and a reputation for crime, Oscar Niemeyer's Copan, which had only just started to recover when the restaurant first opened 16 years ago, was a famous landmark. There are currently 72 stores in the building, including a bookstore, a trendy cocktail bar, coffee shops, and laundromats; the almost 1,200 flats are very popular, especially among young creative types. 

As I savored my final course at A Casa do Porco, the upscale restaurant that Rueda and Jefferson Rueda co-founded in 2015 adjacent to Dona Onça, we struck up a conversation. Pancetta with guava paste, rice wrapped in Japanese nori, and grilled pork with leafy greens and jewels are some of the items on the menu. If the Ruedas' boteco is Dona Onça, then A Casa do Porco is a clever and imaginative ode to the diverse people and cultures that make São Paulo, especially its core districts, unique. The eateries capture the essence of the city's vibrant nightlife, its residents' unique personalities, and the hazy line between neon and dove-gray mornings. "The concept of mixing, of bohemia, of the dawn" is central to São Paulo cuisine, according to her. Her ice-blue eyes were lit up by a brilliant smile as she proceeded, "So, you're interested in trying a dish that's uniquely São Paulo?" If I were you, I would make sushi. Why is São Paulo cuisine not recognized? Quite a variety.

Following Rueda's suggestion, I headed to the casual second location of chef Telma Shiraishi's restaurant Aizomê, which is housed in the Kengo Kuma–designed Japan House, the following morning. Because her grandparents emigrated to Brazil from Japan in the early 1900s, Shiraishi is a third-generation Brazilian-Japanese person. The Liberdade quarter is the historic core of São Paulo's Japanese diaspora, and she had promised to show me around. The region, which was cruelly ironically called "Liberty" before slavery was outlawed in 1888 and Japanese immigrants arrived, was notorious for public hangings and the pelourinho, or pillory, a raised platform that the Portuguese had used to punish criminals and enslaved people for centuries. 

Whoever I was talking to had succumbed to the city's ravenous appetite for shiny, new things. The fact that no one in the bar that night seemed to be from São Paulo led me to believe that anyone may have been from there. 

In what is currently the city's most touristic area, the history is all but forgotten, save for a few inscriptions in two small colonial churches. Seated beneath the sweeping red streetlights, diners congregate at izakayas and ramen joints to snap selfies. "It is my sincere belief that the Japanese immigrants bestowed their character upon this place," Shiraishi informed me. "We took this tragic past and turned it into a dynamic space where people can try new things." In São Paulo, freedom has never been guaranteed. Change is. 

Sé, Maria Monteiro's gallery, is located in a beautiful sun-washed Art Deco building in the Jardins district, so I headed there that afternoon to meet with her. In 2011, Monteiro launched her first residency for artists, Phosphorus, in a little alleyway in the heart of the city's historic district. According to her, the area was practically uninhabitable while she was there because of the large number of people who had been left behind by Brazil's economic development in the early 21st century. She launched Phosphorus and the original Sé a year later in a mostly deserted structure; the latter was named after the nearby twin-spired cathedral. The majority of the buildings were in a state of partial abandonment. Monteiro relocated the gallery to Jardins in 2019 (the Centro is still problematic, and there's a limit to how far you can push art collectors), but she keeps gushing about the enchantment of that first space and the careers that began in a room that, when she first laid eyes on it, had nearly no roof. 

Continuing our journey through Jardins, Monteiro and I drove from Sé to Casa Zalszupin. Jorge Zalszupin was a Polish-Brazilian architect and furniture designer who lived there from 1962 until his death in 2019. The home, which is tucked away from a meandering roadway among tall tropical trees, is a sight to behold with its arching wood-paneled ceilings, stone walls, and wooden shutters. It was recently open to the public by appointment. Germano Dushá, an independent curator and friend of Monteiro's, put up an exhibition at Casa Zalszupin during my visit as a reaction to the citywide commemorations of the centennial of La Semana de Arte Moderna. Dushá informed me that the original event's artists were mostly white elite, and that despite their brilliance, they were exploitative and exoticizing in their portrayals of rural Afro-Brazilians. The question that Dushá sought to address through the Casa Zalszupin display was, "How can we approach the legacy of modernism in a critical way?" 

This question occupied my thoughts the following day as I made my way to Parque Ibirapuera, a breathtaking expanse of verdant land adorned with lakes and curving pavilions created by Oscar Niemeyer. The Monument of the Bandeiras, a sculpture by La Semana participant Victor Brecheret created in 1954, caught my eye as I paused at the entry. The colonizers, known as bandeirantes, were glorified for their violent expeditions into the interior throughout the 16th and 17th centuries from their base in São Paulo, which was a distant Jesuit outpost at the time. São Paulo, like many forward-thinking cities, frequently faces challenges related to its history, as the erasing of Liberdade's tragic past demonstrates. Indigenous activists, many of whose ancestors were victims of the brutality and enslavement inflicted by the heroic pioneers portrayed on the Monument of the Bandeiras, have been using the site as a platform for protest since at least 2013. In the same way that Dushá's exhibition challenges our understanding of colonialism and modernity, the monument also calls into question our understanding of the city's own heritage.

I went back to Paulista on my last Sunday in São Paulo, a street that is closed to traffic once a week and is filled with people selling antiques, fresh juices, and dancing. Later on, I meandered my way down from Paulista's ridge all the way to the heart of the city. I found a spot at a rowdy boteco named Copanzinho as the temperature dropped. As densely packed as sunbathers on Ipanema, dozens of plastic tables spilled down the pavement under the shadow of the Copan. In prior journeys, I had been informed that Rio is known for its beaches, whereas São Paulo is known for its sidewalks. Numerous Ecuadorian, Chilean, and Brazilian friends and acquaintances swarmed my table. Art, architecture, and the city itself—some of us already living here, others dreaming of one day—were the topics of our multilingual conversations in Portuguese, Spanish, and English. Over the course of the evening, a great many empty beer cups piled up. A location like this would be bustling with tourists, excitedly confused about their place or how they could fit in, in any other metropolis of São Paulo's caliber, such as Los Angeles, London, or Bangkok. It was as if everyone felt just at home here. 

Douglas de Souza is a painter who was born outside of the city but now makes his home and works in the city; I met him only a few days ago and we became fast friends. Now I looked over to my sitting companion. I said that it was incredible that it felt like everyone around us was from this place. "Nearly nobody here is from São Paulo," he joked, "I'll wager you." I understood his argument, even though he was probably being dramatic. In São Paulo, one can experience the prospect of dissipating and finding oneself, as well as the promise of belonging. Whoever I was talking to had succumbed to the city's ravenous appetite for shiny, new things. The fact that no one in the bar that night seemed to be from São Paulo led me to believe that anyone may have been from there.