Brazil: Ready for Its Culinary Close-Up

Can you name a famous Brazilian chef? What about a famous Brazilian restaurant?

If you can answer either of the above, you're in a very small minority. The truth is that most Americans are more likely to associate Brazil with a certain über-famous supermodel than they are with a celebrity chef. And one of the closest connections to cuisine comes in the form of the native açaí berry, which is to American health food trends what samba is to the cardio dance craze. Brazil has undoubtedly made a mark on the United States, but up until now, that influence hasn't touched the food scene. Two upcoming sporting events are about to change that.

In 2014, Brazil will host the FIFA World Cup, a month-long international soccer tournament showcasing the best of the sport from qualifiers around the globe, and then the nation will host the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. These events will catapult the country onto the global stage, casting a stronger-than-ever-spotlight on its culture and cuisine, both at home and abroad.

Currently, Brazilian cuisine in the U.S. is bleak at best. "The closest thing we have to a consensus is that we've never heard of Brazilian cuisine," says Phil Vettel, longtime restaurant critic at the Chicago Tribune. "For the most part, Brazilian cooking is completely off the radar in Chicago." And Chicago isn't alone.

"It's pretty bad here," says Scott Reitz, food critic at the Dallas Observer. Take a turn to the east, and the scene is just as grim. "I've been reviewing restaurants in New York City for a decade, and I don't think I've ever reviewed a single Brazilian restaurant," says Adam Platt, chief restaurant critic at New York magazine. "You could probably even say Brazilian is the least known major South American cuisine." The one silver lining appears in curbside cuisine from way out West. "The most interesting two or three Brazilian places to open in L.A. in the past few years are actually food trucks," says Los Angeles Times food critic Jonathan Gold. "They're not great. But they're something."

I polled more than a dozen renowned critics across the country for their take on Brazilian cuisine stateside, and the replies echoed an underwhelming chorus of "It's not my area of expertise," "I don't know much about Brazilian food," and "We don't have Brazilian restaurants in [insert major city name here]."

Unlike the cuisines of Italy, China, and Thailand (to name just a few), Brazil never gained a foothold in the American food landscape—even when the samba was popularized in the United States in the 1940s. Aside from açaí berries and the Caipirinha cocktail, Americans have come to associate Brazilian cuisine with only one small niche: steakhouses.

The Brazilian steakhouse scene in the states is a diverse one. International chains Fogo de Chão and Texas de Brazil lead the charge, with locations in most major U.S. cities, as well as seven Fogo de Chão locations in Brazil. Smaller national chains, including Rodizio Grill (nine locations) and Boi Na Braza (two locations), round out the pack. While some of the chains prove to be more traditional in their menu offerings than others, all are centered on the concept of all-you-can-eat proteins sliced and served tableside from giant skewers. It's a "meat, meat, and more meat" mentality, according to Lauren Shockey, a New York City–based food writer and former restaurant critic at The Village Voice.

The focus on roasted meat—specifically Brazil's famed churrasco (grilled beef)—rather than the country's more traditional dishes, such as feijoada (black bean stew) and shrimp bobó (shrimp in yucca cream), is for good reason. "The steakhouse concept isn't foreign in America," explains Almir Da Fonseca, a Brazilian food expert and instructor at the Culinary Institute of America. "It was easy to translate in the States because steak is not only familiar, but it's also readily available."

Churrasco's overshadowing presence isn't the only reason more traditional dishes haven't caught on with the meat-and-potato-loving palates of the American public. "In Brazil, we don't have a Julia Child, a Craig Claiborne, a Charlie Trotter, or an Escoffier," says Leticia Moreinos Schwartz, a Brazilian chef and cookbook author. "If you look back 100 years ago, there was someone in nearly every global cuisine who was already a thinker. We didn't have anybody." The sparse culinary history has only recently changed course as Brazilian chefs step out of the shadows and onto the national culinary stage.

"There's a paucity of high-profile chefs in Brazil, and not a lot of them have global ambition," Platt says. The closest chef to celebrity status in Brazil is Alex Atala, who at the age of 44 is the creative mastermind behind Brazil's crowning restaurant achievement: D.O.M. Located in São Paulo, D.O.M. ranked fourth on Restaurant magazine's 2012 World's 50 Best Restaurants list—its highest ranking since opening in 1999. But even Atala and D.O.M. haven't been enough to make Brazil a food force to be reckoned with in the United States.

Perhaps the most significant reason traditional Brazilian cuisine has failed to win the hearts and taste buds of Americans is the most obvious one of all: When it comes to immigrants to the U.S., Brazil just doesn't have the numbers compared with other groups whose cuisine has flourished Stateside.

"Our ethnic cooking is defined by the people who have come here," Vettel says. "Brazil, possibly because there are fewer reasons to want to flee, hasn't had a whole lot of impact on the American melting pot just yet." Pockets of Brazilian immigrants exist in the U.S., totaling an estimated 300,000, according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau. By comparison, there are an estimated 680,000 Chinese immigrants in New York City alone, which makes it no surprise that Chinese restaurants vastly outnumber Brazilian restaurants across the country. The small scale of the natural, built-in customer base makes popularizing, much less introducing, a foreign cuisine that much more difficult.

With so many strikes against Brazilian cuisine, can two worldwide sporting events be enough to shine the spotlight internationally on this neglected culinary culture? The odds seem increasingly in Brazil's favor, particularly given the sheer magnitude of the upcoming influx of visitors to the country. Hosting sporting events of world scale will introduce countless spectators to Brazilian culture—and cuisine—be it thousands of miles away via their televisions, or inside the walls of Rio de Janeiro's Maracanã Stadium. The world will read, talk, and hear about Brazil more than ever before. More exposure to Brazilian culture means more taste ambassadors for Brazilian food, both near and far.

Economic forecasts have Brazil creeping past France to claim the fifth largest GDP in the world by 2016. That growth has also led to stronger ties to the international food sector, according to Da Fonseca. "More Brazilian food companies are creating professional relationships with other countries around the world," he says. In addition to cultivating new partnerships, Brazil has been strengthening its role as one of the leading exporters of soybeans and meat. Meat exports grew from less than 2 million tons in 2000 to more than 6 million tons in 2011, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Forecasts for 2020 predict the number to reach as high as 8.5 million tons.

An increase in tourism, a booming economy, two back-to-back worldwide sporting events—what more could a country need to extend its cultural and culinary influence abroad? Naysayers would argue that even an event as massive as the Olympics isn't enough to revive, or in Brazil's case, establish, a culinary presence beyond a country's borders.

"There's nowhere to go but up in terms of an overall consciousness and understanding of what traditional Brazilian cuisine has to offer," says Vettel, who admits he breathed a small sigh of relief when Chicago lost the Olympic bid to Rio because he realized he now has six years to figure out how to pronounce feijoada. (Hint: fey-SHUA-da.)

Platt is hopeful the 2014 and 2016 events will be enough to bring traditional Brazilian cuisine mainstream in America, noting that it "deserves the spotlight and popularity." And as a native Brazilian living in the States, Schwartz is also optimistic that Brazil will shine as a country that's about more than just steakhouses. "My hopes are there," she says. "Now let's just see if the demand is there to match."