The picanha is the picanha. But the part nobody tells you about is that they let you sit. Two hours into our meal nobody at the door was tapping a watch. We had a cellar tour, three desserts, and the chef came out himself.
Prologue
One fire, one cut at a time, the way it's always been done.
Brassa is not a steakhouse. It is a churrascaria — a tradition Brazilian gauchos brought down from the southern pampas in the late 1800s, which has nothing in common with the upscale-grill-and-baked-potato format that gets called "Brazilian steakhouse" in the United States.
We carve whole cuts at the table, on long curved steel skewers that spend hours next to a quebracho fire before they reach you. We don't pre-portion, we don't pre-cook, and we don't time you. The board on your table flips green when you want another pass.
The wine cellar is a 240-bottle library of Argentine, Chilean, and southern-Brazilian producers most American restaurants will never carry. The salads, sides, and salgados are unlimited and made by hand, in-house, every shift.
Owner-chef Tiago Carvalho has run Brassa from the line since 2014, and his seven-cook brigade has averaged 9 years of tenure. This is the room where they cook for their families on weeks off.
