Fogo de Chao Brazilian Steak House

 If you are a meat lover then Fogo de Chao is the experience you must have. Located at the Central Park Towers in DIFC Dubai, the restaurant offers a churrasco offering of various cuts of beef, lamb and chicken brought to your table. Having experienced the original offering in Dallas Texas, one had an idea on what to expect and perhaps gauge against. In terms of Dubai’s food offerings Fogo de Chao does stand out as a nonsense meat lovers spot to be at. The salad offerings and the polenta and sweet potato selections may give a vegetarian friend some excellent solace but make no excuses this is unashamedly a meat place. 

Arriving through some navigation to the third level of the building the welcome was warm. The restaurant was well booked and busy. The service oscillated from below par to excellent and it all depended upon who came up to your table. For this class of restaurant some glaring missteps; no one offered to pour the wine or refill, then the ‘serve me’ tabs were green no one came for a while, (a unique part of Fogo de Chao experience is the use of these tabs), the polenta and excellent garlic and mashed potatoes arrived way before the meat and were cold when the meat arrived. 

The meat itself was excellent, the sirloin cuts and the lamb stood out. The chicken breast filled with cheese could have done with a bit more cheese, and while the lamb was excellent it seemed over salted. The salad bar was amazing and one has to remind one self not to fill up on the salad as the meat keeps coming to the table.

Compared to the offering in Dallas one would say the salad bar was tragically smaller than the one in Dallas, even though a very good salad bar. The meat offerings in Dubai’s Fogo de Chao are split into two sections, one with ten cuts and one with six cuts. If memory serves one right in Dallas these was no such restrictions and the cuts of meat were close to if mot more than a dozen. 

Pros

• Excellent  quality meat.
• A unique service concept.
• Delicious salad bar.
• Good views and ambiance.
• Some of the staff was excellent.
• Value for money.

Cons.

• Service at times was slow.
• Attention to detail escaped the key staff.
• Some of the meat cuts were over salted.
• Would have been nice to have a small sanitiser bottle on each table.

Suggestions:

Staff to be trained to a consistent standard. 

Improve the salad bar offering to the same scale as in Fogo de Chao in say Dallas. (Though the quality is excellent)

Verdict is a definite plus point for this restaurant and one that will be revisited often.