Sipping caipirinhas at London's new Brazilian restaurant Cabana

The pão de queijo had just the right level of squidgyness and the caipirinha washed it down a treat. Ok, I was wrapped up in a scarf in central London rather than sunbathing in Ipanema, but Cabana’s attempt to bring a slice of Brazilian food culture to the UK is a pretty good one.

At the launch party this week, co-owner David Ponte told me that he’d bought the serving bowls from a street vendor in Rio and the seats are made out of recycled jeans by residents of Sao Paulo’s Paraisopolis favela. There are plenty of traditional Brazilian treats on the menu, too, including cassava fries and bolinhos de arroz (rice cakes). Some of my personal favourites.
But it’s the barbecued meat that Cabana is most proud of. In front of a backdrop of beautiful floor-to-ceiling posters stands the grill – or churrasco – serving an impressive selection of skewers. My friends enjoyed the lamb, but thought the beef was a little too sweet (we think it might have been served with papaya). The prawns were perfectly sticky and juicy.
The idea behind Cabana is that of street food, where customers pick and mix from the menu, and it’s a concept that’s proving popular among new restaurants opening in London.

Cabana is a million miles away from David’s first restaurant venture in London, Mocotó, which has now closed. I liked the food in Mocotó but thought the style and service was too fussy, and not in keeping with the Brazilian lifestyle. I met David for the first time on Tuesday evening, but his passion for Brazil (where he was born) was palpable.
It will be interesting to see how Londoners take to Cabana. I love Brazilian food but my experience is that it takes a bit of time for the English to warm to it. Once they do, they also tend to love it. Try for yourselves – there are currently two restaurants in Central St Giles Plazza and Westfield Stratford – and let me know which are your favourite nibbles. Read more!

Tom Ze shines in Brussels

When we asked our hotelier in Brussels the best way to get to the Tom Zé concert last Saturday, he warned us of the “dangerous” area the concert was located in. Concerned, we reluctantly made our way there. We needn't have been; it was the equivalent of Dalston and I don’t think the hotel guy – who was very posh – ever ventured out of his Notting Hill equivalent. More shocking was the entertainment itself.
Tom Zé is 75 years old but had the energy of a 10 year old boy. He ran on stage wearing a skirt and introduced each band member with two clenched fists, which he shook enthusiastically above his head – a gesture mimicked by his entourage. The cross-dressing theme (whether deliberate or not) continued when he put on a lacy, pink thong over his trousers and, later, on his head. There was a reason for this, Tom Zé claimed, as several of his songs were about women…

Whether or not you’re a fan of his music, he certainly knows how to entertain a crowd and despite – or in some cases because of – his poor English, and even worse French, he managed to get everyone on side, laughing at his often incomprehensible jokes and singing along to his songs. He and the band managed to write a song from scratch after he picked up the Brussels version of the Yellow Pages and selected random paragraphs from it. The result was a song called “Numéro du Jacques” – probably my favourite of the night.
Several of his songs were politically-influenced but it wasn’t always easy to decode them; he certainly didn’t have much love for England and the US, referring to the “dirty wars” the two countries had been involved in.
That inherent pride in being Brazilian also shone through. One of his songs, Made in Brasil, was inspired by the first time he saw the words “made in Brazil” written on a product. As a child, he said he’d been used to seeing “made in Italy” on his dinner plates and “made in England” on toilet bowls (he made a joke here about shitting on England…).
I thought that Tom Zé’s music wouldn’t be the sort that I’d listen to at home, but I can’t seem to get Numéro du Jacques out of head. And I like that.
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From Formula One to fashion

Untitled from Saul Guzman on Vimeo.

When I was little and living in Brazil, I used to watch the start of Formula One races and then ask my grandad to call me when it neared the end. I found it a bit boring to watch the whole thing but thought it was quite cool to be a (part-time) fan of Formula One. My so-called commitment to the sport has obviously waned, as I had no idea that the late, Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna had a nephew, Bruno Senna, who is a rising star of Formula One. It was fashion that brought us together…

Bruno made his Formula One debut in 2010, I’m told, driving for Hispania Racing, and earlier this year, replaced Nick Heidfeld as a driver for Lotus Renault, part of the Lotus group which also owns clothing brand Lotus Originals. Bruno has become the face of the brand for autumn/winter 2011 and I’ve been sent a behind-the-scenes shoot of the campaign. I can’t believe how alike Bruno and Ayrton look. He certainly shares his uncle’s model looks. And what a stroke of marketing luck that the campaign follows hot on the heels of the critically-acclaimed film Senna about Ayrton’s career…
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