Green for more food, red for ‘I’m full!’ New restaurant concept comes to York

Hold on to your hats and grab your steak knife, a whole new dining concept has just ridden into town.

Vaqueiros is York’s first Brazilian rodizio. Meaning ‘cowboy’ Vaqueiros dishes up an authentic taste of Brazil, right at your table.

While other northern cities have established rodizio restaurants – Manchester United manager José Mourinho has been spotted in one close to Old Trafford – it’s the first one in York.

Housed in what was Silvano’s on Micklegate, the new restaurant is founded by Richard Beal and Brazilian chef Eduardo Caetano. And they recruited a group of rodizio experts to cook and serve the food.

Richard owns Sutlers and met Eduardo when he became the Fossgate bar’s head chef. They had been looking for an opportunity to bring something new to York.

When long-serving York restaurateur Silvano Scanu decided to sell on and move abroad, Richard and Eduardo realised they had the perfect venue for the city’s first rodizio.

Food comes to you

So how does it work?

There are two menus: lunch (Mon-Thurs £11.95, Fri-Sun £14.95) and dinner (£24.95). For that, you get all you can eat.

On the menu are 16 different cuts of meat, including rump and sirloin steaks, lamb, gammon and chicken. Fish lovers can choose from sea bass and giant tiger prawns, and for vegetarians there are seasonal chargrilled vegetables.

Everything is cooked on skewers using a special churrasco grill. You tell your server how you like your food (medium, rare etc).

Then the food comes to you. Staff bring the meat on skewers and carve it at your table. You can ask for more or less of a certain cut of meat.

While you are still hungry, you display the green disk. When you are full, or want to pause, turn it to red.

Drinks and desserts

You can help yourself to the salad bar at any time, and there are authentic Brazilian desserts to tempt too.

The drinks have been chosen to match the culinary experience. There are three Brazilian beers: Devassa, Antarctica and Itaipava. A selection of South American wines includes, unusually, one from Brazil, and there are cocktails native to the country too.

After a soft launch earlier this month Vaqueiros was full for its first weekend, and feedback has been excellent said Richard. Certainly the early TripAdvisor reviews are encouraging.

“There was a definite gap in the market in York,” Richard told YorkMix.

Quality is the watchword, both from the staff and the food. All the meat is from Sykes House Farm. “It’s a fresh product that hasn’t been tampered with.

“It’s meat as it should be.”