Overview
It has been hailed as one of the Latin America’s 50 best restaurants 2024 and known as a two-star Michelin new restaurant in São Paulo 2018. This week we will introduce Restaurante Tuju and the role stainless steel plays in its architecture. Now let’s sail off!
Restaurant Tuju
Tuju is a contemporary fine dining restaurant located in Vila Madelena, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. With a building area of 524 square meters, Tuju boasts three dedicated floors, each serving its own purpose but coming together to offer guests with a unique yet progressive dining experience.
The ground floor where the guests are welcomed at an entrance is also home to a wine cellar and an internal garden. The second floor serves as the main dining area with tables and chairs arranged around a large open kitchen, featuring with natural materials such as wood and greenery. The third floor is set out as a bar with relaxing atmosphere, where the guests can enjoy sweets and coffees on comfortable sofas while feasting their eyes on the spectacular view of São Paulo’s endless skyline.
Background Information of Restaurant Tuju
Restaurant Tuju was a renovation project completed in 2014. The previous building was rented and converted into two new buildings to ensure space adequacy to fulfill all the desired functions, from the garden to the kitchen.
Pursuing a sustainable farm-to-table ethos, Tuju has lavished great areas on its own edible gardens ranging from walls, a second-floor greenhouse to a roof top garden boasting roughly 350 edible plants (Gastronomap 2026). All that are planted at Tuju are eatable. The restaurant has developed a 10-course menu themed with seasonal ingredients mostly from local small-producers to emphasize its focus on ‘São Paulo seasonal food’ (William Reed Ltd 2026).
Speaking of the creative menu inspired by the local rainfall-dominating seasonality, seasonal changes dictate food cycle. Humid spring, wet summer, windy autumn and dry winter shape variable seasonal flavors in a tropical region like the southeastern Brazil. However, to cook them with creative techniques into pleasant tastes, Chef Ivan Ralston who runs the Restaurant has to be mentioned.
In October 2025, Chef Ralston has entered The Best Chef Awards, in the three knives category, the most recognized in global ranking (Bianca Camatta 2025). Despite the failure to pursue his music dream, the appreciation for research, creativity and art has been nurtured, which is reflected in food creativity and spatial setting for his own restaurant. Gastronomy seems to him more a calling than an interest due to the family vein. His parents has run the restaurant Ráscal since 1994. His career transformation seems natural and smooth, but the shift has been accompanied with training at repetitious institutions and international working experiences in famous kitchens like El Celler de Can Roca and Mugaritz in Spain, and RyuGin in Tokyo (Trendland 2026). Paring traditional Brazilian dishes with international cooking expertise brings guests with the fine-dining experience that could hardly be enjoyed elsewhere.
The Design of Tuju Restaurant
Tuju is designed by the local architects Vapor 324. The restaurant creates a contemporary, industrial impression with generally a warm tone inside. If two words are required to describe the design of Tuju restaurant, “transparency” and “sustainability” must be in place.
First comes transparency, which is fully reflected in the construction material and the spatial design. A large volume of translucent glass materials is used as the façade. The smart use of glass breaks the boundaries reaching the restaurant and provides a dialogue with the city, something that can hardly be achieved by concrete walls. Adding to that is the setting of an open kitchen. As the guests walk into the dining room, they feel like entering through the kitchen, a central and symbolic place in any Brazilian house, which brings instant intimacy.
Second is sustainability in design. While choosing the local seasonal ingredients and growing inhouse edible plants echo with sustainability in terms of food at Tuju, sustainable architecture design reveals itself in every detail, including but not limited to the preservation of the existing building, the use of recycled water in internal gardens, the application of eco-friendly industrial materials as well as the incorporation of landscaping into the restaurant functions.
Stainless Steel Materials Applied in Tuju Restaurant
Using industrialized materials including metal structure and frames, prefabricated slab panels for a fast commercial project like Tuju Restaurant is a rational choice. It doesn’t signify speed at the compromise of quality. Instead, stainless steel materials, mainly stainless steel sheets are used in both the kitchen and the inhouse greenhouse.
Stainless steel is corrosion resistant and durable in light of performance, timeless and aesthetically appealing in terms of apperance, so it is favored by contemporary designers and can be seen almost everywhere. Yet, using stainless steel to make bases for growing plants in the case of Tuju Restaurant is novel and innovative, bespeking the greater potential of stainless steel materials to be tapped.
Stainless Steel Materials from CIVMATS China
If you are looking for stainless steel materials like stainless steel sheet plate coil strip, to stainless steel pipes and bars as shown in the case of Tuju Restaurant, welcome to CIVMATS China. We can customize the shape, grade, dimension of stainless steel materials per your exact demand. Consultation is free.
As a reliable stainless steel material manufacturer from China, CIVMATS international office comes to embrace its first 10 year annual anniversary this summer. We celebrate with you, expecting to grow with you sustainably. Choose CIVMATS, choose safety and reliability in China.
