Matheus Farah e Manoel Maia Arquitetura Earn a Best of Year Award for São Paulo Chocolate Shop

2021 Best of Year winner for Counter Service

Its nearly 200,000 Instagram followers is one indication that Dengo is a maker of world-changing chocolate, or, for those fluent in Portuguese, Chocolate com sabor de mudar o mundo, the Brazilian company’s slogan. Its cocoa comes from trees in sustainably managed agro forests, and the Bahia farmers from which the beans are acquired are fairly paid. Matheus Farah e Manoel Maia Arquitetura was equally conscientious in its design of Dengo’s first freestanding site, a 16,000-square-foot, four-story concept store that also happens to be the country’s tallest wooden building. And that wood is engineered CLT, which is prefabricated, thermally efficient, and easy to install, reducing project costs, duration, and waste.

Native peroba do campo composes the table bases, casegoods, and bar face in the Meu Dengo station, where customers can customize ingredients. Also noteworthy is the flooring. Called caquinhos, or little pieces, it consists of re-constituted shards of broken red ceramic. It was a popular style in 1940’s and ’50’s São Paulo homes but also nods to Dengo’s best-selling product: Quebra-Quebra, big bars of chocolate that can be broken into many pieces for sharing—sweet and affectionate, which just happens to be the Bahia translation of dengo.

Matheus Farah e Manoel Maia Arquitetura: Matheus Farah; Manoel Maia; Polímnia Garro; Andreia Oshiro; Fernanda Miguel; Rafhael Silva; Pedro Benatti; Matheus Aleixo; Alex Pataro; Henrique Costa; Isabella Rosa