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Fogo de Chão Brings Brazilian Cuisine Mainstream

By Joel Chusid

Ten years ago, Brazilian “gaucho cuisine,” characterized by meat-based offerings served continuously in a steakhouse called a churrascaria, was virtually unknown across North America, with the exception of Porcao in Miami. In Miami, this could be expected, as there was a significant Brazilian and other South American expatriate community. There were also a few other Brazilian restaurants in Miami, and some in diversity-rich New York. Plataforma opened in Manhattan’s Brazilian influenced West 46th Street in 1996, but the rest of the United States was still a frontier, as far as Brazilian food was concerned. 

I have always enjoyed dining in Brazil, whether in Rio de Janeiro, surrounded by happy, carefree cariocas, or in São Paulo, where people still had that Brazilian rhythm, but with more of a business air. Lunches and dinners usually centered around meat, with plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit, rice, and invariably preceded by the wonderful caipirinha, a potent drink made with Brazilian sugar cane liquor called cachaça, sugar, and plenty of fresh limes. You could have a sumptuous and carbohydrate-rich meal at churrascarias like Porcao in Rio, or at Fogo de Chão in São Paulo, although less elaborate, yet filling meals could be had at any simple rodizio, a place where you ate all you wanted, and paid by weight, anywhere in Brazil. Plataforma, in Rio, was more of a touristy samba show, as opposed to a fine restaurant.

Nine years ago, Fogo de Chão brought the true Brazilian churrascaria concept mainstream, when it opened its first restaurant in Addison, a suburb of Dallas, Texas. It’s come a long way since then, baby. In addition to its first location, Fogo de Chão now has restaurants in Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, Washington, DC, and Beverly Hills. (Note that Miami and New York are conspicuously absent.)  Porcao never expanded beyond the Latin American gateway of Miami, and Plataforma beyond New York. But Fogo de Chão has carefully expanded to give North Americans a taste of the good (Brazilian) life!

In August 1997, Fogo de Chão opened its doors on restaurant row in Addison, to rave reviews. Although it was a new concept, the idea was simple. One started with the famous caiprinha (or the Americanized caipiroska, made with vodka, or the caipirissima, made with rum). A lavish salad bar, which put other restaurants to shame, featured far more than the usual lettuce and tomatoes, with marinated mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, artichoke bottoms, balls of mozzarella cheese, enormous hearts of palm, and fresh giant asparagus, thirty five items in all. On your table, a coaster on your table was utilized like a traffic light, one side red, the other green. Once you turned it from red to green, the food began to arrive, and didn’t stop until you said uncle, or turned the coaster red side up.

Your table was suddenly populated with pão de queijo (cheese bread), sweet fried bananas, rice and beans, and mashed potatoes. And then the cheerful gaucho chefs, called churrasqueiros, began appearing at your table, each with a skewer of some kind of meat, 15 types in all. You were offered linguiça (delicious pork sausages), leg of lamb, beef or pork ribs, chicken breasts wrapped in bacon, beef ribs, pork loin, bottom sirloin, top sirloin, filet mignon, and the popular picanha, either plain or roasted with garlic.  Sliced right at your table, you used tongs to catch them and grab them on your plate. It was easy to see why this became popular very quickly in carnivorous Dallas.

Fogo de Chão featured an extensive wine list, with a wide selection of domestic, European, and South American wines, the latter of which can be extremely good and a great value price wise.  Desserts were also rich, and featured the Brazilian papaya cream, a whipped vanilla ice cream and papaya concoction topped with crème de cassis, reportedly good for the digestion after such a heavy meal.

The churrasqueiros were more than waiters, since they had the responsibility not only for serving, but also for seasoning and roasting the meats. In fact, the U.S. Immigration Department had a special classification for them as they did not exist in the U.S., so they were admitted to the country under this special category.  These fellows had grown up in Rio Grande do Sul, in Southern Brazil, where the gauchos (southern Brazilian cowboys)  grilled their meats over an open fire on the ground (hence the name, Fogo de Chao, which means ground fire), and it had been part of their culture, in some cases, for generations.

Vilmar Zenzen (known by everyone as “Zenzen”) is an example of this breed. As one of the original churrasqueiros at Fogo de Chão in Dallas, he improved his English over the years, perfected the skill of serving American diners without losing his native skills, and then worked his way up in the company, opening the other locations, and today is the General Manager of the Dallas restaurant.   A personable young man, Zenzen, comes from a family of churrasquieros, born on a farm just 40 miles from the Argentine border. The gaucho tradition was in his blood. He loves to stop by and chat with diners in the restaurant, and readily shares his experiences.

The Monday night I ate at Fogo de Chão, at least five years after my previous visit, Zenzen commented that it had been a “slow evening” although nearly every table was full. He must have said this because no one was waiting for a table. The previous Saturday they had served dinner to 900 people, and waits for tables could be as long as two hours. The waiters at the restaurant are not necessarily Brazilian, and they work as a team, but the churrasqueiros are unique and still come from Brazil. “Four more are coming next week,” Zenzen told me. Such skills are not learned; they are ingrained from youth. I asked him what changes he had seen in the nine years since he arrived, and he said that they kept watching customer preferences and modified the menu or service as needed.  It turns out there really wasn’t much need to change a successful formula, with the exception of the removal of grilled chicken hearts from the skewers, which Americans didn’t seem to take to. Brazilians are also generally not fond of organ meats, unlike their southern neighbors, the Argentines, which they in fact, export to them.

At first glance, prices at Fogo de Chão may seem a bit expensive, $44.50 for dinner, $29.50 for lunch, but when one factors in what’s included in the price (only dessert and beverages are extras),  they end up being more economic than other a la carte steak houses in Dallas. Lighter eaters or vegetarians can also gorge on the extensive salad bar alone, which includes meats like prosciuto and bacon, for $19.50 at either meal.

The tradition that Fogo de Chão brought to Dallas and the five other cities in the U.S. has not been lost on its competitors. Imitation is the best form of flattery. Following their lead, several Brazilian churrascarias now are open in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.  But Fogo de Chão has the distinction of being the first, and some say, the best. Expansion is on the horizon, both in the U.S., and in Brazil, where a new location in Belo Horizonte has been announced. This will complement the three in São Paulo and the original restaurant, opened in 1979, in the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre.

Check it out for yourself. In Addison, Fogo de Chão is at 4300 Belt Line Road. In Beverly Hills, they’re on La Cienaga’s restaurant row, in Houston on Westheimer, in Atlanta in Buckhead, in downtown Chicago, and right near the White House in Washington. Website: www.fogodechao.com for addresses, hours, and menus.

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