- We'll be carving a lot of meat tonight.
- [Katie] We're here at Fogo de Chao in midtown Manhattan.
I'm gonna be learning how to be a Gaucho chef.
Preparing meat, butchering meat, cooking meat,
and also table side service.
So that's the only thing I'm a little worried about,
a lot worried about.
I just wanna stay back here the whole time and cook.
- I've never eaten at a Brazilian steakhouse.
Tell me a little bit about what you guys do here.
- Well what Fogo represents is the gaucho culture,
it's through the churrasco,
which is authentic way to cook the meat.
- [Katie] How many people are you serving regularly?
- We serve over 3500 people a week.
Not including our Bar Fogo,
which is probably 1000 customers more.
So I would say about average 4500 people a week.
- Oh my gosh, and how many a night?
- Uhhh--
- Busy dinner service.
- Busy dinner service goes up to 1000.
- Alright, well it looks like I need to get changed here,
before you let me out in the dining room.
- So can we talk a little bit about
the Brazilian cuts of meat versus the American cuts of meat.
- So in Brazil we eat the meat very, very thin,
because when you make the churrasco we have
a starting time, but we don't have the end.
So if you eat a lot of steak, thick,
you're probably gonna get full pretty fast, right?
So we cook that and we eat it small pieces,
then we can do like 3, 4, 5 hours meal, talking, drinking.
So we cut the strip there, we put that in the skewer,
we give a small piece as well.
So you can have as much as you want,
and always have fresh and hot food on your plate.
- What's the most popular Brazilian cut of meat?
- The most popular one is the picanha.
So basically the picanha's the cap.
It would be the best part of the sirloin.
- Is there a reason for why you skewer it this way?
- When you do the rotisserie, right,
so you have the fat, the fat is gonna cook,
and the center's is gonna get juicier.
- Okay.
You've gotta have some muscle for this.
- Be careful with the finger there (laughs).
If you don't do that properly
the meat's gonna drop from the skewer.
- We don't want that to happen.
How many of these do you skewer a night?
- Today, 30, 30 skewers.
- So out on the floor, does each gaucho have
a section of tables like in a traditional restaurant set-up?
How does it work out there?
- So basically each gaucho chef,
they take care of one cut and they do the whole dining room.
It's not the only one section.
- So everybody is taking care of the whole dining room,
but they're responsible for a specific cut of meat.
- Exactly.
So basically, the night's that we're serving 1000 people,
that gaucho chef is gonna be serving 1000 people.
- Oh my gosh, wow.
- I'm gonna get you Laudir to show you
how to cook the meat.
It's very important how we control the temperature
of our churrasquiera.
And how we put the cuts on the grill
and how we marinate it.
So the beef, we just marinate with sauce,
so it's to preserve the flavor for each steak,
and then you can distinguish the difference
between of them, right?
- How many different cuts of meat are you working with?
- [Ricardo] So we have about 15 different cuts.
- [Katie] 15.
So are you putting new ones on throughout the night?
'Cause this is happening really quickly.
The cooking time.
- This is right now, we've started
to serve the dining room right now,
we gotta be fast, you know.
And you walk fast, you serve the guests
with perception, and you get to know what
the guest's preference are.
- And you're keeping track of all of this
while you're serving tables?
Oh my god.
That makes me really nervous.
What temperature do you cook these things to?
Like, when is it ready?
- The one on the top is gonna be more like a medium-rare.
So when you carve, you ask the temperature,
so we carve the smallest one, is the one
like a medium-well, so you have
three different temperatures on the same skewer.
- On one skewer.
So you're cooking until that top piece
is medium-rare and then naturally
the bottom two are a little more cooked.
- Exactly.
So when you carve and get to the table,
you know more or less.
The secret is to know what's the preference of the guest.
After you've started to serve the tables around,
you know this table likes more medium-well,
this table likes more rare.
So we communicate as the gaucho,
say table 15 for instance likes these steaks medium-rare.
So we bring more medium-rare types to them.
- Okay.
You're not using thermometers, you're not--
- No.
- Poking and prodding at the meat.
How do you know when it's the right temperature?
- We know. - You just know.
- We look at the piece, we know exactly where
is medium, medium-rare, well.
I mean, we serve a lot of people,
and obviously after practice, you get
to know exactly what we're serving,
and what's the temperature of the steak you are serving.
- Yeah, for example, I have here, this is medium-rare.
That's medium-rare.
- Exactly medium-rare.
- You have here more well-done.
- Right.
(laughing)
It's so good, it's so simple, but it's so good.
- Ready?
- Do I look believable?
- Yeah. - Like I work here?
- Absolutely.
- Like I'm not terrified.
- No, you're not.
- Let's go! - Let's go!
- You lead the way.
This is the picanha.
This is the best part of the sirloin.
You're welcome.
Where did Ricardo go?
- You're doing wonderful.
- You're too nice.
So I just came back from the dining room.
It's not as bad as I thought.
I feel like Ricardo gave me an easy cut, though.
I'm just gonna roll with it.
New York Strip Steak.
I'm catchin' a breeze through these pants.
It's kinda nice.
- So how did you feel?
- I felt good, you know, after getting out there
a couple times, I felt better about it.
People know what they want, yes or no, keep moving.
I've worked in a lot of restaurants,
but this is something so different, you know?
It's truly an art form and a craft,
and the interaction, the experience you're giving
your guests is just beyond what I've seen before.
So that was really cool to see and do.
Once I got out there a couple times
I felt a little bit more comfortable,
but it's really, really cool.
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