We’ve eaten rodizio style meals on several occasions, both in the UK and in America, so knew what to expect of this place five minutes walk from Alti’s tram station. But, if you’ve not done rodizio before, think of it as Brazil’s take on the “all you can eat” buffet. There’s a wide range of starters and salads. And pickles and other “additions” – pickled jalapeno peppers and pork scratchings, for example… Yes, proper pork scratchings – just the thing to cheer up a Northern bloke on a chilly midweek evening. There’s also some hot items (the creamy mushrooms were excellent). These are laid out off to one side of the restaurant and all are labelled so you know what you are putting on your plate. And, of course, you can keep going back to top up your plate as many times as you wish (I think I managed three visits)
Meanwhile, servers are going round the room with various cuts of meat on big skewers. On your table, you have a marker – half coloured green, half red. Turn it to green and the guys will stop by and carve you slices off the chunks. If you need to pause, turn to red and they’ll pass you by, till you’re ready to restart. When we sat down, the guy said they had ten different cuts that evening. I don’t think we tried all of them but we weren’t that far off. It is easy to be greedy in a place like this – so we were. Most of the cuts are beef – rump, pichana, ribeye, etc – and all were very good. Well seasoned with a great flavour and generally cooked to a perfect medium rare. We also tried the gammon & pineapple, chicken and lamb which were all fine, if not quite the quality of the beef. But, hey, this is South American rodizio – you’d expect the beef to be best.
They do have a dessert menu but I’ve no idea what was on it as we were too stuffed to even consider anything. Front of house service was spot on. Welcoming, friendly and entirely on the ball. Just as it should be in every restaurant.
The website “implores you to indulge and enjoy plentifully”. So we had. Isn’t that what restaurant hospitality is all about?
