B
razeiros Churrascaria is the first
Brazilian Steakhouse in Louisville, having
opened its doors on March
31, 2014 on 4th Street Live
between Maker’s Mark
Lounge and the Meidinger
Tower. Louisville is only
the second location for Brazeiros, the first one
being in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Dining at an authentic Brazilian Restaurant
is a unique experience, since there is no conventional menu and you don’t place an order.
Service is always extremely attentive. As soon
as your server greets you and shows you to
your table, you will be asked if you have dined
at their facility before, and if not, you will be
given a brief introduction as to how the process works.
RESTAURANT
REVIEW
Brazeiros
450 South 4th Street
Louisville, KY, 40202
502-290-8220
www.brazeiros.com
Reviewed by M. Saleem
Seyal, MD, FACC, FACP
& Sally L. Seyal, RN, BSN
28
LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
Basically, after you give your drink orders,
you will be directed to an elaborate endless
salad bar that has a beautiful display of various kinds of cheeses, pasta salads, vegetables
including asparagus, broccoli, heart of palm,
olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and variously colored peppers, green leafy salads and dressings, fruits, breads and smoked salmon. Salad
bars at some Brazilian Steakhouses have a hot
buffet as well. It is healthy to eat a decent portion of salad, since you are going to be in a
carnivore’s paradise shortly, though we did
observe one gentleman at a churrascaria in
Las Vegas sit down and eat ONLY meat for his
meal, no salad, no sides. Very intense! When
you are ready for the main course of meats,
you simply turn your flippable disc from red
to green and there appears a steady stream of
gauchos or passadores (meat waiters) in quick
succession, armed with very sharp knives and
sizzling meat skewers with cuts of beef, lamb,
pork sausages and chicken. Roasted meats,
recovered from the rotisserie, are brought on
sword-like skewers and sliced table-side. Tongs
are provided to help the sliced portions of the
meat from the skewer onto your plate. The
gauchos are very accommodative in providing
you the meat cooked rare, medium or welldone, as you wish, and can withhold the kind of
meat you do not want served, pork in our case.
There are usually 12 to 16 cuts of meat that are
brought sizzling on the skewers at table-side,
ready for carving. Some of these cuts include
the oft-photographed and advertised picanha,
which is the top sirloin cut, filet mignon, beef
short ribs, garlic beef, rib eye (ancho), leg of
lamb, lamb chops (cordeiro), pork tenderloins,
pork ribs, pork sausages, chicken legs and garlic
chicken. At Brazieros, there is a “salad bar only”
option, and also a “light dinner” option which
includes chicken skewers and the endless salad
bar. Side dishes appear when you are finishing
your salad and have “turned over green” for
the meats, and usually include the ubiquitous
cheese bread- the popular and delicious pao
de queijo, fried polenta (cornbread), caramelized plantains and seasoned mashed potatoes.
If a break is desired in the meat-full nirvana,
the disc can be flipped to red and the parade
of gauchos will be held in abeyance until you
are ready for more. Everything in the meal except drinks and dessert is provided bottomless
with a fixed price. Signature made-in-house
desserts include papaya cream, Brazilian flan,
crème brulee, chocolate eruption cake and
many others.
Brazilian steakhouses, or Churrascarias or
churrasqueria, are essentially barbecue places
and are a new phenomenon in the United States
that offer a prix fixe all-you-can-eat roasted
meat selections served tableside in succession.
Churrasco is the Portuguese and Spanish term
that has been used for the delicious ranch-style
beef steak that was fire pit roasted on swords
back in ancient times. The serving style of tableside carving of freshly cooked meats called
rodizio traces its origin in northern Argentina
and southern Brazil’s Pampas regions in the
1800s and was brought to the United States in
its current form in 1997 with opening of Fogo
de Chao, which means, “fire on the ground” in
Dallas, Texas. The original concept was started
in Brazil by two sets of enterprising brothers,
the Cosers and Ongarattos, in the countryside
of Rio Grande do Sul in 1979. Fogo de Chao
now has 24 locations in the United States and
several in Brazil. Texas de Brazil churrascaria
debuted in Addison, Texas in 1998 and currently has over 30 locations in the United States.
Brazeiros Churrascaria on 4th Street Live in
Louisville is a beautifully appointed and tastefully decorated restaurant with a huge bouquet
of fresh flowers atop the salad bar. Interior