Zac C.
Yelp
BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: EAT HERE, IT'S WORTH THE PRICE!!!
I grew up in a restaurant family. My grandparents, parents, and several aunts, uncles, and cousins all had or still have restaurants. so when I am impressed by a restaurant, it earned that respect. And when we read the reviews for Galpão Gaucho, we knew this was where we wanted to celebrate our 30th Anniversary. And in EVERY aspect, it lived up to and exceeded what we hoped for.
The salad bar, and soup & side bar was great. the chicken tomato soup was especially delicious. And all the salad bar items we tried were amazing, especially the prosciutto, smoked salmon, and the mango fruit salad. All the specialty cheeses were amazing and they only used fresh mozzarella.
The meats were the highlight for me, of course. It's literally why you go to a Brazilian steakhouse. All the meats were wonderfully seasoned and well cooked. Every one of them were very savory. my personal favorite was the rack of lamb. It was even more tender than the bacon-wrapped filet mignon. It seemed to melt in my mouth as I chewed it. A very close second from the grilled items is the caramelized grilled pineapple. It literally tasted like the best part of a pineapple upside down cake, without the cake (because most people make it too gummy and don't get the cake to taste like cake). Each bite was a taste that hit the sweet and salty taste buds perfectly.
We shared the Chocolate Molten, and had cappuccinos for our dessert. The molten was great, and the cappuccinos were perfectly frothy. I spent 20 years in the military instead of going into the restaurant business, and it was as good as I actually had in Italy, so I would assume they used an authentic/traditional steam machine, instead of the automatic machines in an American coffee shop.
But as amazing as the food was, the service was actually the thing that impressed me the most. Our server was not merely friendly, she was personable and enjoyed having a genuine conversation with us, but she was so very respectful that she never intruded on our time and waited for us to ask her how she was and initiate the conversation. That kind of service is an art. Two different managers came by and wished us a happy anniversary and wanted to make sure we were enjoying the meal and the service. And Giovanni, one of the managers, was wonderful to talk to. I asked him how long preparation times were (not about the secrets of how they did it, but just the general timelines), and he confided that the salad bar takes three hours to make everything fresh each day, most of the meats need an hour to three to prep and begin cooking (combined time), and the ribs take five hours to prep and slow roast. It was obvious from the first bite that they took their time to do things right, from scratch, but that kind of preparation takes some real dedication.
All this made for a wonderful dining experience for my wife and I to celebrate our 30th anniversary. And we will definitely be back when we make our next trip down to Charleston.