Plenty of drinkers assume cachaça is Brazilian rum with a different label on the bottle, and it’s not an unreasonable place to land. The two spirits are made from sugarcane. They have deep roots in tropical climates, and they like to show up in the same kinds of cocktails. With that much in common, it […]
Brazilian restaurants work very differently from what most of us are used to back home, and it takes a minute to get your bearings the first time around. Walk in, and instead of a host handing you a menu, you’ll probably get a ticket pressed into your hand before you’ve even spotted where the food […]
A Brazilian churrascaria is its own dining experience, and it starts right as you walk in the door. Giant skewers of meat, servers making their way between tables and a general sense that you’d better have some idea of what you want before anyone stops at your seat – there’s plenty to take in all […]
Between a weeknight dinner and a centuries-old tradition sits one of Brazil’s most well-loved dishes – a fragrant seafood stew simmered in a clay pot, loaded with rich aromatics and a deep coastal character that’s nearly impossible to recreate anywhere else. Maybe you’ve come across the name before but couldn’t quite place it or spotted […]
Festa Junina is Brazil’s second biggest traditional festival – right behind Carnival in how much it means culturally. Every June, tens of millions of Brazilians pack the town squares lit up by paper lanterns to celebrate three Catholic saints, with music, dance and tables just loaded with food that has roots that trace back centuries. […]
Sunday lunch is not a casual meal in Brazil. Families plan for it, travel for it and in some cases build their entire weekend around it. You’ve probably wondered why that midday meal means this much to Brazilian culture, and the answer is a combination of food, family and a way of life that generations […]
Brazilian menus usually give diners pause if they’ve never come across them before. Words like “feijoada,” “picanha,” and “acarajé” don’t have any clean English translations, and any direct attempt to translate them tends to strip away the cultural meaning that comes with them. Brazilian cuisine draws from Indigenous, African and Portuguese roots and the layered […]
Brazilian beef culture tends to make distinctions that diners outside the country just don’t see. Picanha and alcatra come from the rump of the cow, and on a menu they can look nearly identical – but they cook and taste quite differently once they’re on the grill. Plenty of customers outside Brazil either treat them […]
The person who makes a Brazilian steakhouse dinner work carries the title “churrasqueiro.” The word almost never shows up on menus or signage, and yet the entire feel of a churrascaria dinner does rest on that one person’s skill. A title that’s that invisible deserves at least an introduction. Type the word into any search […]
A meal at a Brazilian steakhouse can ruin you for beef – at least once you’ve tried the picanha that comes off the rotisserie with the fat cap rendered just right and the flavor runs deep in a way that’s hard to forget. Walk into your local butcher and ask for it by name, and […]
A Brazilian bakery case and an Argentine street cart, placed side by side, would give you two pastries that look just about the same. One gets labeled empada, the other empanada (just one letter apart), and the two of them are dough wrapped around a savory filling. Even die-hard food lovers get these two mixed […]
The spread at a Brazilian steakhouse covers serious ground. There’s a massive cold bar, a full hot bar, soups, charcuterie and a whole lineup of imported cheeses that runs along the full length of an entire wall. The whole spread makes a statement on its own – well before a single gaucho has even made […]
