After a morning of sightseeing, we stopped into La Central for lunch. As its name implies, the restaurant is centrally located in downtown São Paulo, just a few blocks from the República Metro station.
First things first - La Central is very hard to find, since its storefront is not actually on Ipiranga. To find it, look for Ipiranga 200 (the Edifício Copan), walk into the shopping area, and go all the way to the back of the building, where you'll finally find it in the back left corner. The entrance is outside, on an alley off of Ipiranga. That alley is also your view from the tables along the windows of the restaurant.
Fortunately, the interior of the restaurant is much more pleasant, with sleek modern lines and a cool concrete-top bar. I'd describe the menu as "Mexican tapas", offering smaller portions of traditional Mexican dishes. The chicken tinga tacos come with jalapeños, cheese, and lettuce, on very small soft flour tacos (guessing the 4.5" size, by eye), two per order - solid, but didn't blow us away. The chicken enchiladas had a nice presentation, with three pieces being served in a small skillet. The green sauce was quite nice and the chicken was well-seasoned.
The service was pretty sterile - unusual for São Paulo - and about five minutes after the enchiladas arrived, our tacos still had not arrived. As you may have already surmised, the server only entered the order for the enchiladas. Fortunately, the kitchen was able to get the tacos out quickly once the error was discovered.
I struggled between a 2 and a 3 for the rating, and I guess it's actually right in between. The restaurant is probably a better choice for happy hour, where you can get some of the menu items to have along with your cocktails, with the focus of your experience being on the cocktails. read more