Bauru
Photo: Romerito Pontes from São Carlos · CC BY 2.0

Ponto Chic's Bauru layers roast beef, melted cheese, tomato and pickled cucumber in a hollowed pao frances, invented at this Sao Paulo diner in the 1930s.

In the 1930s, law student Casimiro Pinto Neto, nicknamed Bauru for his hometown, walked into Ponto Chic on Largo do Paissandu and asked the sandwich maker to build him one to his own specification: melted cheese inside a pao frances with the soft crumb removed, then roast beef and tomato. Pickled cucumber joined the recipe later. The sandwich became the house's best seller and spread across the city under his nickname. The city of Bauru later wrote an official recipe into municipal law to protect the name. Accounts disagree on the exact year, with 1934, 1936 and 1937 all cited, including by Ponto Chic's own current telling, so this account keeps to the decade rather than pick one.

1 editor pick for Bauru in São Paulo, ranked by editorial score. All São Paulo signature dishes · Bauru across every city.

Ponto Chic ★ 4.4

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Ponto Chic is the Largo do Paissandu lanchonete in Sao Paulo credited with inventing the Bauru sandwich, named for the student who ordered it.

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