‘A Chef’s Table without a Chef’s Table experience is just a meal on uncomfortable stools’: Brasa, Freight Island, reviewed

Brasa is the newest food trader to join Freight Island. It doesn’t just serve croquettes and steak frites to Joe Public - though these were flying across the pass on our visit. It also offers a more refined Chef’s Table menu so diners can fully enjoy an elevated Brazilian churrasco experience. And I was excited about being Jo Posh for a change.

All the signs were good; Brasa is from Caroline Martins and the team behind Sampa where the intimate Chef’s Table experience is whimsical and wonderful in equal measure.

Care had been taken over the place settings with cork and natural materials. I wondered pretentiously if this was supposed to invoke the Amazonian rainforest, trying to ignore how very plastic all the tropical plants were.

It started well with some excellent frozen lime caipirinhas (£10.50) and delicate amuse bouches. Pork crackling, they were. Very good ones too.

These are like a little foretaste of what is to come. The pork crackling predicted meatiness, big flavours and the comfort of familiarity. Other hints about the dining experience came in the form of a neon glow from a huge flickering screen behind us and a soundtrack which was coming from someone else’s party. The atmosphere of the Chef’s Table was going to have to perform culinary miracles to get past all that.

The first dishes were even better. The pão de queijo (£8.50) are a traditional Brazilian speciality but to me, very much not a girl from Ipanema, they tasted like excellent cheese scones, and were served with caramelised onion butter. It’s not fancy food without fancy butter, right?

A platter of salgadinhos (£8.50) was also very good quality but continued the same theme. These Brazilian croquettes were dippy, salty, gooey, oozy. Everything that’s addictive about basic food but with a flavour profile way above the freezer cabinet of your local supermarket.

The cheese and oregano croquettes were the standout with a lingering herbal note that counteracted the dairy squidge and the fried food overdose.

Another round of zesty lime caipirinhas with a kick like a bucking bronco and the main event was served. The portions are generous enough for any gaucho after a day herding cattle: a sizzling platter of picanha steak, chips that were sadly room temperature after we’d messed around taking photos, a heart of palm salad and a panoply of accompaniments including farofa, pickles and peppercorn sauce (£28.50). We didn’t really need the black beans and bacon (£6.50) though they added a smoky richness.

The picanha is the essence of Brazilian churrasco cookery. It’s the rump cap and it was served sliced against the grain with a beautiful caramelised crust and pink tender meat that’s got more flavour than a lot of cuts. All the fat was rendered perfectly and the farofa — toasted cassava flour mixed with buttery, savoury flavours — added a nutty crunch that balanced the softness of the steak.

The heart of palm salad was somewhere between artichoke and asparagus in flavour and brought a welcome freshness and a chance to enjoy something more typically South American. The steak and chips may have been Brazilian barbecue in execution but they were still steak and chips.

However, a Chef’s Table without a Chef’s Table experience is just a meal on uncomfortable stools. No dishes were introduced with a flourish. No-one talked us through the cuts of meat or the churrasco tradition. We learnt nothing about the pasture-reared cows from family-owned Lancashire farms who’d died for our dinner.

Our server was lovely, but balancing primly on our perches, the only two guests who weren’t eating in the comfort of the cheap seats, we felt like we’d been had. Even the deliciousness of the fresh churros couldn’t take away the feeling of being tricked. It left a bad taste although the meal itself did not.

The thing with those uncomfortable stools behind the rope, they set up an expectation. Being a part of an event, not just a bystander (or a by-sitter).

But the food was really good and, for the price, it was really good. The cooking isn’t the problem. But a Chef’s Table is supposed to offer something more than just good food. Because the thing is, I like Freight Island. I’d have been happy with cocktails and cow in among all the other diners. Brasa needs to rethink their offering because although I liked the ceremony of the sharing steak, the set-up was all wrong, like silver cloches at Laser Quest.

I may not be the only person to think this. Certainly there was no one else trying the Chef’s Table experience at 7pm on a Thursday evening. Perhaps Brasa is pivoting away from its Chef’s counter too? The menu for the high-end version of the Brasa experience with sharing steaks ranging from picanha to pricey tomahawk seems to have faded from the internet. It left me wondering if it was all a fever dream.