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Editor’s note: We asked jazz guitarist and composer Anthony Wilson where he heads first for food when he lands in Rio. Wilson has been a member of Diana Krall’s quartet since 2001 and has recorded with Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson, Madeleine Peyroux and Barbra Streisand, among many others. His 2011 album “Campo Belo” was recorded in São Paulo with Brazilian musicians André Mehmari, Edu Ribeiro and Guto Wirtti.

In a world filled with amazing places to eat, there are hardly any restaurants that I can say I actually prefer to Braseiro da Gávea, in Rio de Janeiro. When I am lucky enough to arrive in that amazing city, I try to get there as soon as possible. If it’s morning, well, they’ll be closed, but lunch can’t be far off, can it? You might also hear Braseiro da Gávea referred to as “Baixo Gávea,” which is actually the name of the neighborhood it’s located in. So there’s no need to say what restaurant you’re going to if you say you’re going to “Baixo Gávea,” because everybody already knows that’s where you’re going. It’s definitely easy for making plans:

“Where should we go?”

“Baixo Gavea?”

“Vamos!”

Braseiro da Gávea is a simple restaurant, known for its beef, particularly the cut called picanha – the cap muscle of the animal’s rump, covered in a layer of fat, just adjacent to where the tail connects to the body. The restaurant also makes incredible galetos, which are small, whole chickens. Basically, we’re talking about meat cooked over wood fire here.

Braseiro da Gávea's farofa de banana, galetos and arroz com brócolis, photo by Vinicius CamizaI guess it might seem a cliché to some folks: He’s telling us to go get Brazilian barbecue when we go to Brazil? Well, I don’t know what else to say – just that on my very first trip to Rio in 2005, this is where my friends, many of them local musicians, took me, and it’s where we always go when I return there. If you want to roll up your sleeves and eat something really good, and you ask a well-dialed-in carioca where to go, it’s very possibly where you also might find yourself.

Braseiro da Gávea serves basic Brazilian food. And I think that’s what makes it so special. It’s exactly what it should be. You sit down, and before you know it, you’re already drinking a Chopp – the greatest thing ever, a cold, Brazilian unpasteurized draft beer. Actually, it’s very, very cold, and super fresh (once a keg is tapped the beer only has a few days’ shelf life, but it doesn’t matter, because they go through those kegs fast!), and it drinks like water. You order linguiça (pork sausages cooked over the fire), and things are off to a great start. You’ll probably eat about four plates of those amazing sausages, which are perfect with the beer.

Then the main picanha and galeto dishes come out … after a while. It’s worth adding that things happen in their own time here; Braseiro da Gávea is not a place you go to if you are in a hurry. Stay a while, bate papo – chat and gossip, a real carioca pastime. The servers are all men; some of them are older men who don’t seem to care at all that you are there, and they definitely take their time with your order.

Guitarist and composer Anthony Wilson, photo by Ian GittlerThe main dishes are served family-style, with arroz com brócolis (rice with broccoli), farofa de banana (toasted manioc flour with banana, a delicious staple of the Brazilian diet) and fried potatoes. The farofa com banana is what many Brazilians like most about this place. I mean, they talk about it, with this great look of pleasure on their faces! While I’ve met some “gringos” who have issues with eating a banana-infused side course with their savory barbecue, I would advise folks to just go with it. All these delicious accompaniments are what create the really harmonious gestalt of the whole thing. The picanha and galeto are never dry, never overcooked and perfectly translate the fire and smoke over which they are cooked into a flavor that turns addictive as you eat more and more. We often have to order extra plates.

I can’t imagine a better, more satisfying dinner. Braseiro da Gávea is the perfect end to a day under the bright sun of Praia do Ipanema and an ideal beginning to a night out in Rio, perhaps listening and dancing to the great variety of traditional Brazilian music that is presented in many bars and clubs just across town in the amazing all-night neighborhood called Lapa.

 
(top by photos by Vinicius Camiza; above photo by Ian Gittler)
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Published on June 07, 2014

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