Ama.zo - Cozinha Peruana

Control learned at the counter

Citrus, fish, heat, and timing set the pace before service. As chef at Ama.zo - Cozinha Peruana in São Paulo, Enrique Paredes keeps that pace inside a broader Peruvian kitchen, with the habits of a cook formed first by structure and then by speed. Instituto Gastronómico D'Gallia gave him the formal base. Lima gave him the counter rhythm, especially through Barra Khuda, the cebichero counter he opened and ran from 2015 to 2018. That format leaves little room for drift: fish cut to order, acidity held in check, plates landing while the room is already asking for the next pass.

Since 2018, Paredes has carried that discipline at Ama.zo, where Cocina Com Libertad gives the work its stated direction. The phrase matters here because the cooking does not read as loose improvisation. It is open in ingredient and reference, then held by repetition, timing, and service control. Peruvian classics arrive reworked for São Paulo, not detached from their source. The kitchen keeps coastal, Andean, and Amazonian cues in the same frame, with Brazilian produce brought into the method rather than placed beside it as decoration. In 2026, Paredes commanded a class at the restaurant, extending the same kitchen from service into instruction.

Ceviche, tucupi honey, low heat

The menu works à la carte and moves through small plates and larger dishes with seafood as its clearest line. Ceviche misto carries the coastal register; salteado do mar brings the pan and the sea together. Other plates show the kitchen's wider reach: oysters with Japanese ponzu, physalis, and black massago; vieiras with tucupi honey; pulpo al olivo; arroz con mariscos; ossobuco cooked at low temperature with Arequipeño sauce and cassava millefeuille. The method is not a single technique repeated across the table. It is a sequence of acid, smoke, low heat, starch, and sauce.

That range is where Ama.zo's Amazonian influence becomes most useful. Tucupi honey pulls scallops away from a purely coastal reading. Cassava gives the ossobuco a local architecture. Cacao returns at dessert in chocolate x 4, not as ornament but as density. The beverage program stays close to the food, with Pisco Sours, Peruvian cocktails, Cusqueña beer, and Miraflores lemonade made with mango, lemon, and basil. The wine program is curated, though the restaurant does not name a sommelier in public material.

Under jabuticaba trees

The room at the Casa da Don'Anna site changes the tempo of the pass. Tables sit in a garden with large jabuticabeira trees, small fountains, and a high transparent roof that lets daylight fall across the stone and leaves. The kitchen is semi-open, close enough for the room to feel the movement without turning the meal into theater. Light ambient music and the sound of water keep conversation easy. It is an upscale casual room, but the better word is measured.

That setting matters because the food carries force: lime, chile, smoke, seafood, cacao. The garden gives those flavors air. Plates move from the pass into a room that feels protected from the street without becoming sealed off from São Paulo. If the next public extension of Paredes's work is teaching, it will likely return to the same discipline that shaped the 2026 class at Ama.zo.