The smiling cat. A Pinheiros institution where natural wine, cold craft beer, and a courtyard strung with Edison bulbs conspire to keep everyone in their seats one more hour.
Not every great bar announces itself. Gato Que Ri — the Smiling Cat — sits on Rua Wisard without ceremony: a painted facade the colour of old ochre, a chalkboard menu that changes weekly, and a cluster of regulars on the pavement who seem to have nowhere better to be. They are correct.
Pinheiros has been São Paulo's most liveable neighbourhood for a generation now — the kind of place where independent coffee roasters, weekend fairs, and vinyl record shops share blocks with century-old tile-faced houses. Its bar scene reflects this sensibility: fewer cocktail theatre productions, more spots where the wine list is handwritten and the owner knows your name by the second visit.
Gato Que Ri is the distillation of this ethos. It opened over a decade ago as a wine bar with modest ambitions and became, through sheer consistency and the quality of its hospitality, one of the most reliably enjoyable places to drink in a city with no shortage of options.
The bar's reputation is built primarily on its natural wine selection — a rotating list of around forty labels, many from small Brazilian producers in the Serra Gaúcha and Campanha Gaúcha wine regions of Rio Grande do Sul, alongside imported bottles from France, Italy, Portugal, and Georgia. The team taste everything they list and can speak about each bottle with genuine enthusiasm rather than rote description.
The philosophy is approachable rather than evangelical. Gato Que Ri does not require its guests to be natural wine devotees — the list is available by the glass throughout the evening, and staff are skilled at guiding the uninitiated toward bottles they'll actually enjoy rather than bottles that demonstrate the bar's credentials.
Alongside the wine list sits a short but well-chosen craft beer selection — mostly Brazilian producers from the nascent microbrewery scene centred on São Paulo's ABC region and Santa Catarina state, served in proper glassware at the right temperatures. There is also a concise spirits list, though most guests come for the wine.
A bar in São Paulo without food is a bar with a retention problem. Gato Que Ri solves this with a short weekly menu of petiscos — Brazil's take on bar snacks elevated slightly above the standard: cured meats from Minas Gerais, seasonal vegetable dishes, quality cheeses, a rotating charcuterie board, and usually one or two proper plates built around whatever looks good at the market that morning.