Gather Around the Grill

Hyannis churrascaria offers all-you-can-eat flavor and fun

By Laurie Higgins

A meal at the Brazilian Grill on Main Street in Hyannis provides much more than sustenance. It is a sensory experience that offers a glimpse into another culture that treats meals as a jovial time to relax and savor a wide variety of flavors – for a truly diverse clientele.

The original concept – when the restaurant opened seven and a half years ago – was to dish up a taste of home to the large Brazilian population on the Cape, according to owners Maximiliano and Kelly DePaula. Brazilians flocked in but so did a growing American crowd, fascinated by the exotic rodizio tableside service and big hunks of meat.

The restaurant is a churrascaria, a popular type of barbecue steak house in Brazil, that specializes in meat grilled, rotisserie-style, over wood charcoal. Tantalizing smells waft through the dining room as waiters circulate with large skewers, offering a succession of meat hot off the grill and carve slices directly onto diners’ plates.

“We serve over fifteen cuts of meat, all fresh, and we’re very careful about the quality,” Maximiliano DePaula says. The most popular are the ribs and top sirloin, but the Brazilian Grill also serves lamb chops, leg of lamb, skirt steak, flank steak, rib eye, filet mignon and chicken hearts, chicken wings, chicken tenders wrapped in bacon, linguica sausages and brisket stuffed with queso blanco cheese.

 “When we started a lot of customers came here to eat a lot, but now it’s changing,” he says. “Now they come to eat good steak and good fresh vegetables.”