Favela Grill

Brazil is my favorite country that I've ever visited, and I can count on one hand the number of restaurants that serve moqueca in NYC. So I was stoked to check out Favela Grill on a chilly night and chow down on some seafood in palm oil stew. Sadly, Favela missed the mark on this dish--and on most of their dishes. - Caldo Verde: This was our best item, and it came piping hot and delectably creamy. But Caldo Verde is Portuguese, not Brazilian...so it's odd that it was on this menu - Salgadinhos Sortidos - Trio of fritters. The Bolinho de bacalhau (codfish) was easily the best, while the Coxinha de Frango (chicken) was disappointingly dry and the Bolinho de aipim queijo (yucca with cheese) lacked seasoning - Bife à Palito: Big portion, yes, but completely bland. How do you screw up grilled sirloin at a Brazilian restaurant? I was drowning each piece in green sauce to give it flavor - Moqueca de peixe com pirão: Sigh. Where to start? First off, this dish was $34 with just fish, and they make you pay an extra $6 if you want shrimp. I've never had moqueca that didn't include both, so to have to pay extra was a disgrace. Second, the vegetables were severely lacking: moqueca should be loaded with onions, colorful peppers and herbs, but we got very few onions and no peppers of any kind. The overall portion was also rather small, which just made me long for my days in Rio even more A bad service note: We ordered two orders of Pão de Queijo (10 pieces x 2) to go when placing our dinner order. We confirmed the order twice with our initial server, then again with another server halfway through the meal--so three times in total. We needed these ready by the time we left as we were bringing them immediately to a party afterward and were already running late. By the time we had paid our bill, the buns still hadn't arrived. We escalated this to the manager, who insisted we never placed this order--leading to a tedious back-and-forth argument. The manager finally decided the order must've gotten lost between server rotations, and we ended up having to wait an additional 22 min after paying in order for the pastries to be ready. Not nice. To his credit, the manager did give us a complimentary mousse-type dessert to make up for the trouble, but we never got to try it. Think I'll stick to West Village's Berimbau for my moqueca fix. Or maybe I'll just bite the bullet and go back down to Bahia.

Excellent casual establishment where you can get delicious Brazilian steak. We ordered the ‘churrasco mixto 2’ which included 3 picanha (top sirloin) steaks, 2 skirt steaks and your choice of chicken or sausage. We went with the chicken. The dish is served with rice and black beans, but we also ordered the ‘Favela Chic’ salad and ‘Pão de Queijo’ (cheese bread). Everything was delicious and plentiful to say the least. Steak was cooked perfectly and the side dishes were fresh and tasty. Ambience on a Sunday evening was chill and the staff were very cordial. Will definitely go back!

Great spot for a taste of Brazil, definitely recommend the premium caipirinha! Our service was fast (contrary to what I was told) and the food was excellent, my party and I sat outside I bit distracting but that's what you get sitting outside, inside did however seem well ventilated and temperature controlled but on a nice day I'd sit outside...

Went here last night with wife and some friends. We got a bunch of stuff: salgadinhos, linguiça calabresa for apps, bean soup, bacalhau à Gomes de Sà, picanha, frango grelhado, and moqueca. The great: The linguiça was excellent! It was best I’ve had outside of Brazil. The bean soup was also great; the moqueca was excellent (especially the pirão) but moqueca is kind of hard to mess up; the picanha was also excellent, cooked rare. The hot sauce (malagueta infused oil) was excellent and authentic tasting. The ok: beef pasteis were pretty good and the coxinhas were fine. The grilled chicken was also ok; my wife got it and liked the mashed potatoes a lot. The not so good: both the bolinhos de bacalhua and the Bacalhau à Gomes de Sá main dish tasted as if the salted fish had not been soaked long enough, making it too fishy and underseasoned except for salt. Also the Bacalhau à Gomes de Sá I’ve had in Brazil and at Portuguese restaurants in the US has been served more as a casserole; this was like a pile of shredded fish with the other components not well integrated. Still, amazing place. So excited to live nearby!

Came here for Valentines Day with my family- 2 adults and 3 kids. Great atmosphere and loved the decor. The staff was very friendly and very attentive. The food was the best, we started with some appetizers and for our main dish we had the churrasco and the rib dish. My kids devoured their plates. We will definitely be coming back and I definitely recommend this place. Very kid friendly as well.

I've recently celebrated my friend's birthday and my birthday there, they are GREAT! No problems with the reservation, food is really good, their time is very professional and we had a special atencion from the waiter. We got 100% satisfied. Also, there were 2 musicians there playing the best of Brazilian music, they were also extraordinary. We definitely will be back!

Authentic Brazilian food! The food and the service are amazing. I will definitely come back.

My bf took me here for Valentine’s Day and baby we had a TIME. We were very lucky to have found a place last minute to have availability on the day of Valentine’s Day first and for most. The server was absolutely amazing, he was very patient with us as we don’t speak nor understand Portuguese. The entire menu is in Portuguese which isn’t a bad thing for those who wish to expand the palette. I had the chicken w cognac sauce, it was absolutely delicious. Everything on the menu sounds intimidating but trust me what I had was DELICIOUS. For des, we had the banana and ice cream flambé!!! Run don’t walk to order that dish! Perfect way to end your night (: