Lions Nightclub, São Paulo

Facundo Guerra combined one passion he shares with the rest of São Paulo (great nightlife) and two he doesn’t (taxidermy and the city’s crumbling downtown) to create Lions Nightclub, the city’s most compelling new party spot, opened in February in an old-school 1950s office building.
The club occupies a second-floor space that long ago housed an elegant men’s club, as evidenced by marble columns, a parquet floor, and gorgeous wall mosaics almost certainly by 20th century Brazilian modernist Anita Malfatti.
Mounted peacocks, pheasants, a parrot and a toucan add quirkiness to the neo-Baroque décor designed by Fabricio Rollo (editor of Brazil’s Casa Vogue). So do the crowd of members (selected by Guerra and the three other partners), their friends, and an eclectic slice of the general public.
A revolving door leads from the main bar area to a dance floor, where mesmerising mirror trickery makes strips of tiny lights reflect back to infinity. The most popular space, however, is the outdoor patio - both for its city-centre views and for the refuge it provides from São Paulo’s 2009 prohibition on indoor smoking.