After a five-year detour, the former Brasa Grill is back under original ownership. Marcelo Fadul opened the city’s first Brazilian steakhouse in 2004, introducing the dining public to the bottomless joys of churrasco, an all-you-can-eat parade of rotisserie-cooked meats served tableside by sword-bearing gauchos. Fadul recently purchased the Warehouse District business from the Mallorca restaurant group, changed the name to Cello’s Grill (1300 W. Ninth St., 216-623-6333), and fired the grills back up last week.
“I was originally going to do Italian, which is why I went with the name Cello’s Grill,” Fadul explains. "But I said what the hell, I’m going to do Brazilian since we did so well. The year that I opened we did $5 million. It was amazing."
Fadul’s plan, simply enough, is to “bring it back to the original Brasa Grill of 15 years ago,” he says.
“Gauchos,” dressed in the traditional attire of boots, pantaloons, belt, neckerchief and hat, deliver 15 different grilled meats to the diner for tableside carving and serving. Options include the famous picanha, or sirloin cap, filet mignon, top sirloin, leg of lamb, beef ribs, pork sausage and many others. Diners signal servers to visit and serve or keep walking with a two-sided medallion: green for more, red for basta!.
In addition to the meats, five different side dishes are brought to the table, including fried plantains, white rice and empanadas. All of this is in addition to the boundless salad and antipasti bar, stocked with 25 different foods like fresh broccoli, stuffed grape leaves, crab salad and baked salmon.
Between the closing of Brasa Grill in November and the opening of Cello’s Grill last week, Fadul improved the 240-seat space in numerous ways, the most dramatic of which is situating a grand piano in the heart of the room.
“I made the place beautiful,” he notes. “The room looks like the lounge of a hotel.”
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