Rodizio Rico
111 Westbourne Grove
London W2 4UW

Rodizio Rico

Having lived in Argentina, and travelled to Brazil – for example, to Foz do Iguaçu to see the impressive Iguazu Falls, I was interested by Rodizio Rico chain that claims to be London’s only authentic Brazilian “churrascaria de rodizio”. We went to the one located in Westbourne Grove, near Notting Hill.

It is a kind of buffet and rotisserie restaurant where the waiter passes from table to table with a variety of different cuts of meat on skewers, which can be sliced directly onto your plate.

Inside Rodizio Rico

Inside, the restaurant is quite large with brick walls and wooden tables. Despite the fact it was far from being full we were given a table that was located to the rear of the dining space and it was close to where the staff clean the dishes. Quite noisy and unpleasant.

The menu is easy as there is only one choice, which is a “Eat as much as you desire BBQ meats, salads and hot dishes” at £22.50. The idea is that you fill your own plate with your choice of salads and sides, then select from a constant stream of skewered meats, as they are offered at your table. You can stay as long as you like, and just keep taking more slices of meat until you have had enough. As drinks, a glass of red wine was £5.70 (decent wine, but way overpriced) and a small bottle of sparkling water was £2.80.

Our plates

The buffet section is quite large with salad, boiled eggs, corn, feta, olives, sausages, couscous, beans, deep fried battered banana, lasagna (very good!), plenty of sauces including some quite hot & spicy ones.

Amongst the meats we tried were grilled chicken wings, chicken wrapped in ham, even chicken hearts (which were disgusting), a variety of cuts of beef, pork, lamb, sausage.. garlic bread on the skewers.

See the deep fried battered banana on top

Too dry, overcooked meat

Nice chilli sauce but the creamy corn at the right was bland

Not great sausage and beans

A general observation is that most of the meats were overcooked, with even a chicken wing being very dry as it got burnt. There was rather a lot more chicken and pork than has been my experience with this kind of restaurant in Brazil (where, I guess, beef is rather less expensive). I did not like the sausages that had some kind of lemon flavour.

Cost and conclusion: it was £58.85 (including the “optional” 10% gratuity) in all. This is not a cheap restaurant, and we were quite disappointed at the quality of the beef, large quantities of cheaper meats, and the general overcooked state of the meat as it arrived (possible exception was the “baby beef”). In sum: reasonable food (though not a patch on what you can get in Brazil), but for what it was, we found it quite overpriced.