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The lights of Octavio-Frias de Oliveira
Thanks to Philips LED lighting, it changes colors and patterns at night - making it a colorful sight to see!
By: Mary Gostelow
São Paulo’s Octavio-Frias de Oliveira bridge, over the Pinheiros River, is a highlight as you are driven the sometimes-long route between airport and city center, or vice versa.
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Thanks to Philips LED lighting, it changes colors and patterns at night. Designed by João Valente Filho, the bridge was opened May 2008, and named for the founder of Grupo Folha, of Folha de São Paulo paper. The bridge is 5,200 feet long, and 450 feet at the highest point, which is the X-support held by 144 cables. In all, 7,000 tons of steel were used.
You can see the bridge from some of the bedrooms in the 466-room Grand Hyatt São Paulo, in the prestigious Marginal Pinheiros business and financial district in the Berrini area of this sprawling city. It has the big advantage, by the way, of being only half-way to what could be considered ‘downtown’, which is a considerable help when getting from and back to the airport. Traffic, especially Monday to Friday, is unpredictable at best, and you need to allow two hours at least, even for Grand Hyatt (one driver I had said his ‘record’, if you can call it that, was six hours, in a rainstorm, and of course his passenger missed his plane.
I arrived, Pull up to main entrance – on your left is a 12ft-high stone wall with a water feature in the form of five 20-inch wide waterfalls. The main door is to the right. Behind you is the walkway, with six palms in pots and a decorative wading pool, to the two-floor 17 Restaurant complex, where we to dine. I was ushered in to a cavernous airy lobby, more like a modern museum, designer Don Siembieda’s homage to shiny grey granite. We went to one of the elevators, and I was able to check the weather for the next three days, plus the exact time and what was happening to the world’s stock exchanges, on a television monitor that was, thanks to the elevator’s mirrored interior walls, repeated as a ballet, forever.
Up at floor 20, we got out and big signposts (no eyeglasses needed here) showed which way to go in what is a donkey’s hind-leg corridor configuration, with elevators in the middle. Room 2021, on the Grand Club floor, is 430 sq ft, and beautifully welcoming. Its colors are cream and beige, with a hint of rust. You walk in, marble floor, minibar and hot beverage facilities hidden in a cupboard to your left. Ahead, with beige carpeting, is the main bedroom – looking out, at eleven o’clock, at the iconic Ponte Estaiada. Double back on yourself (about-turn left, in military parlance), parallel to the entrance lobby and you are in the marble-floored bathroom area, storage on your right, a single metal sink set into black marble on your left and, beyond, a central glass-walled shower, with rainforest and hand-held outlets: you have a tub on your left, and, behind a door, the toilet on your right. The toiletries are 180ml Granado tubes, from the Amazon area, and you have a selection of soaps, with a soap menu. The boxed soaps set out on the tub’s rack included Glycerine and Ylang-ylang for healing; and calendula for oily skin, açal for really oil, or coconut; Algae is for sensitive skin, almond for softness, lanolin for natural glow, honey for tonification, witch hazel for skin balancer.
This hotel, it seems, is somewhat into ‘menus’. The technology menu offers a comprehensive range, from universal power adaptor R$67 up to SanDisk Cruzer Micro USB flash drive 8GB R$178. I also have a newspaper menu, offering a choice from around the world – unfortunately for the UK the list includes the ghastly-trash Mirror and Sun but no sign of the once-prestigious The Times (what would owner Rupert Murdoch say if he happened to call by, although he might be placated by finding the Sun, which is also in his depressingly-large portfolio). A card offers ten percent discount at Ermenegildo Zegna branches, including the one in what many call the world’s ultimate department store, Daslu.
There is the slightest, delightful hint of lemongrass everywhere. I have a big Samsung television and DVD, and a Bossa Lounge CD to take home, and iPod rechargers have recently been added too. There is both wired and wireless connectivity, which is complimentary in a club room.
Ah ha, my desk. The furniture is all light, golden wood and must have been specially designed. It does save space: bedside tables come out about 15 inches by the bed but taper, at their other side, to barely nothing. The curved desk is supported by the wall at one side, and has a leg at the other. This leg has extremely sharp vertical angles, as do the extremities of the bed. Memo to self for next visit, remember that when doing morning wake-up floor exercises there is considerable likelihood of bashing yourself.
Right now there was no time for floor exercises. It was now 7.25 pm and I was due for dinner at eight. I dashed down to the second floor gym, looked in vain for a Pilates ball (it was in a separate
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Strengthroom, which I was not strong enough to find) so had to suffice, in the Cardiac room, with a five-minute steepest incline run on a treadmill, followed by a quick-quick swim in the lovely indoor lap pool, about 35 feet long, with two real palms at one end. To save time I showered in the locker room, dashed upstairs and would have been down in the lobby on the hour apart from the fact my elevator started went up to the top (22nd) floor not down, and then stopped at nearly every floor.
We were dining in Eau, in the lower level of the aforementioned block 17. When the hotel opened, in the year 2000, its joint owners, the Liebermann family from Buenos Aires and the Pritzkers, from Chicago, settled for a French-themed fine dining restaurant but gradually it had become less popular. Times have changed, and Brazilians anyway are very informal, says the hotel’s GM, Carl Emberson, who had been on the Grand Hyatt São Paulo opening team but returned here in 2006 as numero uno. Now the restaurant, which is more a brasserie, is terrifically popular, especially with local residents in the highly-affluent neighboring Morumbi area. We had a drink first, in the bar where a main feature is the ceiling-high wine wall where some 1,500 bottles are stored, and then moved next door to Eau, which actually looks more like a 122-seat lounge, with wood tables and comfy arm chairs, and young attendants in open-necked tieless shirts. Places were set with local Schmidt china, Hepp cutlery and fine linen napkins, and small candles in frosted glass sleeves.
Eau chef, Laurent Hervé, came over to say hello, and recommend the crispy seabass with mushroom soubise, his signature. We were brought, for every two persons, a long narrow white plate with a snail-shaped loaf of bread, and bite-sized cheese pouffes. Little dishes held butter, and a mushroom purée. There was a wood platter with Serrano ham, and toasted Poilâne-type bread, to share, and individual cups of tomato soup. My meal-proper started with a goat cheese and pear meslun salad with truffle vinaigrette and hazelnuts. I went on to a Uruguay grilled Hereford ribeye, with sides, all in small white dishes, of rustic French fries, artichoke barigoule, and sautéed assorted mushrooms (I was brought a magnificent Arkhip knife, Brazil’s version of the Laguiole, but the meat was so tender it was not really needed). We shared tastings of local-fruit fresh sorbets. The single-card menu, by the way, is printed in big letters (English, French and Portuguese) and gives provenance of the main items listed: it also offers four- and six-course degustation menus, with wine pairings if requested. Tonight we drank a decanted Poesia 2002 (60% Malbec, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon), from the Mendoza boutique winery of Patrice Leveque and his wife Hélène Garcin-Leveque.
In the morning, I guess I was up with the lark but since it was not only dark but raining (and a Sunday) I would guess the birds were having a day of rest. The pool was opened exactly at the stated seven by a smiling young woman who was certainly all ready to start the day, as were the attendants in the Grand Club lounge, though for some reason all the other guests were having a lie in. The buffet was outstanding for its mango, papayas and other local fruits, and Brazilian ricotta and lots of cold cuts, and, as one would expect, the coffee.
After a few hours, the next item on the agenda was a soporific Swedish massage in one of the seven with-shower rooms in the Amanary Spa. It was all very professional, masses of white sheets, Enya and muzak background. I just had time, after this, to call down for a quick room service lunch. You can tell when a hotel’s cuisine is really good if room service gets it right. Here the operator said it would take half an hour, and it did, exactly. Riccardo, in a black coollie suit, stylishly carried in a most enormous, and heavy, black rectangular tray with steel handles: it was made even heavier by the large metal cloches over both main dishes. My caprese was an elegant arrangement of small oval shapes of mozzarella and lengthwise-quarters of sun-dried tomato, with a substantial drizzle, rather than downpour, of pesto. And oh, my mushroom risotto with truffle oil – they could not have made it better in Italy.
So many mushrooms in under a 24-hour stay bodes well for good dreams on my overnight flight, now, as I head back to Europe. Happiness is certainly having made it back to the airport in another 45-minute traffic-free drive, and having experienced the style of Grand Hyatt São Paulo.
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