By Neil Sowerby
TASTE of Manchester had the good fortune to get a Taste of Brazil while enjoying a wine masterclass at the newly launched Fazenda Rodizio and Bar in Spinningfields.
All the ingredients (primarily meat-driven) are there for a repeat of the churrascaria (from the barbecue) chain’s success in Leeds and Liverpool. Fascinatingly, sales and marketing director Tomas Maunier revealed the carnivorous tendencies of punters in both cities. The Tykes gorged on rib-eye and fillet, while the Scousers couldn’t get enough sirloin and sausages.
There’s plenty of opportunity for Mancs to forge their own Fazenda identity with 14 choices from the grill, from the obvious beef, lamn and pork cuts cuts to chicken hearts and morcela (black pudding). Signature dish is the cap of rump or ‘picanha’, the main cut in Brazil. Diners signal to the ‘passadores’ (meat chefs) by displaying a green card to be served, or red card for ‘pause’.
Veggies get shortish shrift with “hand-made pasta of the day”, but there’s plenty of opportunity to eat well from the extensive salad buffet, which forms the starter option for meat eaters. The temptation is, ‘all inclusive’ style, to pile on to your plate a wide ranging array of stuff – from sushi to stuffed vine leaves to prawn cocktail to cheese. Resist, the meat is your reason for being here.
As at pioneer of the style in Manchester Bem Brasil, waiters rotate around the tables (that’s what ‘Rodizio’ means), offering slices from freshly grilled joints, emulating the gauchos of old in southern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, who liked to eat on the move. Today, in dynamic, cosmopolitan cities such as Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, it has all been transformed into a sophisticated restaurant experience.
Hence the importance of a high-end wine list. Fazenda was Britain’s first restaurant group to take on board the now trendy Coravin System, which allows a restaurant to serve an expensive, rare wine by the glass from the same bottle over an extended period. Coravin keeps the cork in the bottle, where it's been since the bottle was sealed. A thin hollow needle is inserted through the cork to access the wine. It leaves the cork intact. When the needle is removed, the cork reseals and continues to protect the wine from oxidizing as if it had never been opened.
All this would count for nothing without a wine offering deserving of this loving care. we tasted South African wines from the multi-award winning Creation in a masterclass by Carolyn Martin, brought over specially to introduce us to a range that included some stellar Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
Alas, none of these are on the current Fazenda wine list, but it does stock the winery’s Syrah-Grenache 2010 at £29.95 and Viognier at £30.10 and throughout November their Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon/Petit Verdot is available at £28.60 instead of the normal £44.90 – great value for a blackcurranty-oaky red that matches the steaks so well.
The delicately tropical Creation Sauvignon Blanc is also a November Wine of Month, so down from £34.70 to £25.80. The plan is to run regular masterclasses, pairing some cutting edge wines with the Fazenda food offering.
Fazenda, The Avenue, Spinningfields, Manchester M3 3HF. http://fazenda.co.uk/manchester/
