São Paulo

São Paulo is a city of superlatives. With over 12 million people in the city proper and 22 million in the greater metropolitan area, it is the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the ten largest cities on Earth — a concrete jungle that stretches to every horizon, a place where helicopters are a common commuting tool and restaurants serve every cuisine on the planet. To the uninitiated, São Paulo can seem overwhelming, even ugly. But those who give it time discover one of the world's most culturally rich and gastronomically extraordinary cities.

The city's beating heart is the Avenida Paulista corridor — a broad boulevard of skyscrapers, museums, and open-air culture flanked by the extraordinary MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo), whose red and glass building seems to float above the avenue. On Sundays, Paulista closes to traffic and becomes a 3-kilometre open-air park. Nearby, the bohemian neighbourhoods of Vila Madelena, Pinheiros, and Vila Olímpia offer the city's best bars, street art, and live music — São Paulo has a nightlife culture that would embarrass most European capitals.

The food scene is São Paulo's ultimate distinction. The city hosts one of the world's largest Japanese diasporas, concentrated in the Liberdade neighbourhood, which means the ramen, sushi, and izakayas here rival Tokyo. Brazilian barbecue (churrasco) rodízio restaurants offer all-you-can-eat cuts of gaucho-style meats carved tableside. The Mercado Municipal, a spectacular Belle Époque covered market, overflows with Amazonian fruits, artisanal cheeses, and the legendary mortadella sandwich. And the high-end restaurant scene — led by chefs like Alex Atala — regularly appears among the world's best.