A Casa Do Porco

A Casa do Porco (translates to House of the Pig) is a homage to pork as a whole. If you love pork as much as we do, this is a restaurant that you need to check out in Brazil. One accolade recently was that Janaína Torres was rated as “World’s Best Female Chef 2024”. The restaurant also has a Michelin green star, which means they are sustainability conscious. They control the entire food chain from farm to consumer.

On the World’s 50 Best Restaurants of 2024, A Casa Do Porco is currently rated 27.

Ambiance & Service

The ambiance inside reminded me of a butcher/garage shop. You can see a huge pig split in half and on the grill. When we went around 3 PM local time, there weren’t that many people, and they seated us promptly despite us being 30 minutes early to our reservation.

The service was very fast, in that we were in and out within 90 minutes.

The price of the tasting menu with 8 courses was R$290, and the harmonization of drinks was R$210. They also charge a 13% service fee on the subtotal. We highly recommend that you get the harmonization because much of this is in-house, and it was surprisingly very good. At the time of purchase, the currency ratio was 1 USD to 5.4 Brazilian Reals. Basically, take the price listed, and divide by 5.4, and that’s what the USD equivalency is.

Food

My partner ordered a glass of grape juice (R$13).

The Salad of the Day (R$38) was so very fresh and clean. The salad greens were plucked from the chef’s garden, so it was mighty delicious. For the dressing, it was just a very subtle vinaigrette. You really didn’t need to use too much dressing since the greens were just so clean.

The first pairing was a Renascer Das Cinzas, which was cachaça, ginger, lime, vermouth rosso, and activated charcoal. This was basically a ginger and citrus vodka-like drink.

The cold cuts course with this pairing came with:

• On the left (top to bottom) were different cold cuts (a’la pork charcuterie)
  • Loin cup
  • Guanciale - cured pork cheek
  • Lard - this was delicious and exactly how I’d imagine
  • Pork head - this is basically head cheese, which is a mix of different parts of the pork head
• On the right (left to right)
  • Corn meal crisp - this was crispy, crunchy, and delicious
  • Pork liver pate - this came on top of a chip and tasted exactly how it sounds

The sandwiches course came with a pairing of Bota Mel Na Boca, which was passion fruit mead, brut sparkling wine, and beer reduction. This mead was by far one of my favorite things I’ve had in a while. I would definitely buy this at the store if this was sold in the US markets.

For the sandwiches going left to right:

• Paulistano with porco real’s ham, pickled eggs, and fried pork tripe.
• Bread and Mortadella with ciabatta bread, porco real’s mortadella, and watercress emulsion.
• Tapioca bread with countryside sausage and green tomatoes vinaigrette. The sausage here was actually really good.

The third pairing was a BFiver Cider. This was made in-house, and it was light, crispy, and very complementary to the tartare.

The pork tartare came from pork loin, radish, and crispy daily tubers. It was served with a citrus shot that they ask you to finish at the end. At first glance, eating pork tartare seemed like it was going to be the death of me, but it was actually really good. I will be honest that I was nervous eating raw pork tartare in another country. The citrus shot was a good palette cleanser.

The fourth pairing was their House Ipa which was actually really good and not excessively hoppy.

The BBQ consisted of the cut of the day, chef’s sauce, and pupunha palm heart salad. The meat they gave was a pork loin which by far one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. It was very smokey, but it had the right balance of fat, taste, moisture, and bite to it. On the left was a blood sausage, which was also sublime too. As a lover of pork, this dish really knocked it out of the park.

The fifth pairing came with a Cademusa Syrah organic red wine. Unfortunately, they did not have the Alvarinho wine that they listed on the menu. The Syrah was a decent complement to the next dish, but I very much would have preferred the Alvarinho.

The Ossobuco was their conceptual dish. It was onion soup with pork ossobuco. The broth and everything was made from pork. The pork meat and bones were a bit hard as if they were sitting there, but they did fall off the bone when you chucked at it. The soup definitely reminded me of a French onion soup but with a slightly different flavor due to the pork bones.

The sixth pairing was a 3 lime caipirinha. I’m not a huge fan of caipirinha, but this one they at least loaded it with a lot of limes, so the cachaça was actually smooth after it diluted.

The San Ze pork which came with freshly harvested vegetables. The chef has a garden, so all these vegetables came from there.

Starting left to right:

• cucumber salad
• fried rice
• 6 to 8 hour spit roasted pork chunks
• farofa
• couve (kale)

This was all very good. The pork chunks were dense and very tender. The farofa was one of the best my partner has ever eaten. The kale greens were thinly sliced, garlicky, and delectable.

The final pairing with the dessert was the Jabuticaba Vermouth. This was also house made. As posted in some of my other Brazilian restaurant visits, jabuticaba is a Brazilian grape that is sweet and delicious. Mixing this with vermouth was very ingenious.

The desserts course was papaya and jabuticaba. It consisted of papaya cream, caramel, and jabuticaba sorbet. I love papaya and jabuticaba, so naturally I am going to love this.

The Brazilian treats came with (left to right):

• Cheese and sweet guava ball
• Lime and meringue biscuit
• Pork and chocolate cannoli
• Milk pudding cone

And finally, black coffee. The black coffee was medium roast and very aromatic.

Final Verdict

A Casa Do Porco is basically heaven for pork lovers. With all the different cuts of pig meat they have and different preparation styles, it was a very fun and enjoyable journey.

Yelp Jabs

None of the dishes did I find particularly great or exceptional unfortunately. It was all very interesting… I wouldn’t really recommend this restaurant to my family as an example since I thought the food was OK. Next time I’m in São Paulo, I’ll probably give DOM a try.

This Elitist for whatever reason is trying to compare DOM to A Casa Do Porco. This is literally apples and oranges comparison. They likely didn’t find it interesting because they don’t care much for pork. Pork in America isn’t a big thing outside of BBQs and ribs.

Like a previous review, we too came here because of its renown on the top 50 world best restaurant list. As a result, we came here expecting perfection, and the restaurant is really good but maybe not perfect. Overall it is English friendly and the translation of the name is quite literally pork house. For pork lovers, this is an amazing spot and it is uniquely positioned.

I would take the World’s 50 Best ratings with a grain of salt, just like any food rating site. I do not think that site solely reviews based on food alone, but also based on the restaurant’s mission statement and culture as well. For the price, it’s a great value.

Revisions

1. Jun 18, 2024 - Initial revision.