Tag Archive for: Brazil

Casting a quizzical eye over Manchester’s Northern Quarter in this summer of riots and rain I’m struck by the febrile reinvention of bars. PLY in Stevenson Square is a month away from re-emerging as The Salmon of Knowledge, aka an Irish joint where crispy buttermilk fried chicken boxty stacks will soak up a stoutfest of Guinness and and Cork rival Murphy’s. The equally longwinded The Lamb of Tartary (once Cottonopolis), which launched in February under the stewardship of Manchester Chef of the Year Shaun Moffat, has now turned to a ‘Silk Road Menu’ – small dishes fuelled by spices from China to the Middle East.

 On the surface, then, it’s no surprise to see Calcio sports bar on Dale Street turning out a Brazilian menu. Except there is no shadow of cultural appropriation hanging over Caroline Martins’ SAMPA tasting menu. Indeed some of the unfamiliar ingredients featuring may well have made it into the hold luggage after a recent visit to her native São Paulo. Cupuacu, calamansi, cumari chilli peppers, the cassava powder farafa are all imported, though the requeijao cream cheese for the dip that accompanies her crudités is, I believe sourced in the UK. It tumbles like some Amazon waterfall from a plant pot stuffed with immaculately sourced raw corn, celery, lettuce and, a further touch of the exotic, physalis.

Corn shows up again in the ‘sweet corn butter’ to spread on her Pao de Queijo cheese-topped cassava bread (she learned the recipe in her mother’s kitchen). Except this is bitter sculpted to resemble a corn cob. 


There’s a rosemary-infused beef fat candle, another of those playful Martins staples from past pop-pups at Blossom Street Social and Exhibition. Her fusion of molecular gastronomy and authentic produce was honed during (stressful) stints on Brazilian Masterchef and Great British Menu, twice. All part of a startling career change for the erstwhile theoretical plasma physicist.

So how does her cutting edge cooking style fit in with Calcio, now a permanent berth for herself and husband Tim? It’s a two-headed feast. You can still order a Madri and burger while you watch the footie. Not Samba Soccer, mind. On our visit the screens were showing the Dundee clubs playing out a 2-2 draw in their Scottish Premiership opener. There was also some top-heavy Chinese gymnast securing Olympic gold at one point. 

We were sheltered from much of this by curtains and a floral trellis, but the sporty vibe might deter foodie Instagrammers and the like, here to shoot Caroline’s signature pudding. Spoon into the globular red spotted mushroom resembling a toadstool or toxic fly agaric and you unleash flavours of the guava parfait and jelly at its core plus creamy Minas cheese. The combo also contains a Genoise Sponge and a chocolate crumb from Manchester’s top producer, Dormouse, who import the cocoa beans from Brazil. It’s her take on a classic dessert from back home,’Romeo & Julieta’.

The £58 12 course tasting menu at Calcio is slightly restrained compared with previous incarnations, one of which, at Blossom Street Social, involved the sensational Jackson Pollock/Grant Achatz choc, candy, fruit splatterfest (The Dormouse That Roared).

That dish was a favourite of our late, great chihuahua Captain Smidge, who in his turn was a favourite of Caroline. She and Tim have their own canine legend in the making, eight-year-old Larry the Maltese, who seemed happy for a taste of our mega-tender barbecued ex-dairy ribeye served sizzling on the skillet.

We ensured his tithe was free of the chilli element from the assorted condiments, which included the ubiquitous farafa. My favourite refreshing salad of the summer cam on the side, palm hearts and tomato.
The beef was only topped in the meal by the starter of chalk stream trout carpaccio. It came delicately topped with vivid red cumari chillies, onion pickle and shimeji mushrooms and, the master stroke – a dressing of soy and calamansi, a yuzu-like lime hybrid that delivers a sublime citrussy wallop.

In contrast, a fish sharing main didn’t work for me. Halibut barbecued in banana leaves looked fantastic and promised much, but the halibut didn’t come put steamed and flaky, quite soft and overwhelmed by the cashew nut and ajo blanco sauce.
The slightest of blip in a captivating, good value meal, full of invention from the moment snacks of Somerset goat’s cheese and cupuaçu, a tropical fruit with hints of cacao, and gammon terrine with guava paste emerged from a rectangular smoking cloche. I suspect all this may just be the start of great things here for Sampa (or its alter ego, the São Paulo Project).
The wine list is currently limited, but not without curiosities. Anyone for a white Malbec? The pick is certainly Aurora, a late harvest Malvasia/Moscato dessert wine that hails from Brazil’s Serra Gaúcha region. With a luscious glassful we toasted Dundee’s late penalty equaliser.
SAMPA at Calcio, 24 Dales Street, Manchester, M1 1FY.


Paul Jackson Pollock, born January 28 1912, Cody, Wyoming, died Springs, New York, August 11 1956; Caroline Gameiro Lopes Martins, born February 26 1986, São Paulo, Brazil, currently running a fine dining pop-up in Ancoats, Manchester, named after her birth city.

Bespattered. It is one of my favourite words. Usually the ensuing messy chaos is accidental but in certain hands maybe it transcends random… Take Abstract Expressionism, that jazzy, canvas-bespattering art movement that caused quite a splash when it sprang up in mid-1940s New York. Its mythic master Jackson Pollock said of it: “I think they should look not for, but look passively…it should be enjoyed just as music is enjoyed”.

A typical Jackson Pollock canvas – inspiration for edible art forms?

Maybe the climactic dessert of Caroline Martins’ new 12 course tasting menu at the Sao Paulo Project is in a minor key alongside Pollock’s provocative Mahleresque symphonies in squirted household paint, but it has the advantage of being hugely tasty, too, thanks in no small part to the flavours of her native Brazil that pervade Caroline’s culinary art. 

That £58 tasting menu. currently available at her residency at Blossom Street Social in Ancoats (opposite Sugo and the Hip Hop Social), showcases exotic ingredients such as cumaru (tonka beans), jilo (slightly bitter tomato-aubergine cross), papaya seeds, artisanal dende (palm) oil, preserved Brazilian green fig, farofa (cassava crumble) and jambu flower alongside some cleverly sourced local ingredients.

Great to see a newcomer in her repertoire, vegetables from Cinderwood Market Garden, served simply with a parmesan sauce, brazil nut hummus and an olive crumble. Quite a contrast to the stalwart rosemary-scented edible beef fat candle, crafted out of beef rump cap dripping, where another herb, lovage, colours the moat of melted fat to dip your Brazilian cheese rolls into.

Lobster tail moqueca, Caroline’s take on a traditional seafood stew, and dry aged rib-eye feel surprisingly straightforward in contrast but the pre-dessert is the harbinger of wackiness ahead. A lime ice lolly, accompanied by a Brazilian honey liqueur is a kind of cool counterpoint to the candle, offering a chance in essence to construct your own Caipirinha.

Then the fireworks begin. Maybe in her fleeting appearance on BBC’s Great British Menu her sheer ambition perhaps undid her in her low-scoring ‘fish course’ but she is undeterred in playfully pushing back the boundaries. Hence what is literally a ‘signature’ dish with the likes of basil custard and coconut yoghurt scrawled across a huge black base. Dotted with  cubes of coconut candy, cassava biscuit, guava candy and banana candy, the centrepiece is a smashed ‘bowl’ of Manchester’s finest artisan chocolate, Dormouse (from specially imported Brazilian beans), containing passion fruit mousse, rose petals, coconut granola, merengue and marshmallow. 

Our seen-it-all chihuahua companion, Captain Smidge had kept his equipoise after a surfeit of flash-freezing liquid nitrogen in the build-up. The completed version did look the kind of spread best suited to his natural tongue action; we spooned it all up determinedly.

Six months on since first tasting it, the Sao Paulo food offering has forged ever stronger bonds between British and Brazilian raw materials. Unique? Possibly. It has certainly earned her a nomination for Chef of the Year in the 2022 Manchester Food and Drink Awards.

Of course, there’s nothing new under the sun. That expansive chocolate pud is descended from the presentational adventures of Grant Achatz. Not to be confused with the unpalatable Grant Schapps, Achatz has now held three Michelin star for 12 years at Alinea in Chicago. And yes his approach has led to some ‘serious analysis’. 

Grant Achatz has perfected a scattergun approach to presentation of his stellar food at Alinea

If you really must, delve into Hungry for Art‘a semiotic reading of food signifying art in the episode Grant Achatz (2016) in the documentary Chef’s Table’. The first chapter focuses on the intertextuality between a dish presented in Netflix’s Chef’s Table and the paintings of Jackson Pollock.

Better use of your time? Check out our own next chapter, Ancoats Expressionism According to Caroline Martins’ Great Brazilian Menu.

Caroline Martins’ Sao Paolo Project is at Blossom Street Social, 51 Blossom Street, Ancoats, Manchester M4 6AJ.