Churrascaria Near Me Alternative: Berimbau's $149 Picanha Feast on 36th Street

Berimbau Brazilian Table at 3 West 36th Street is not a rodízio, but its $149 Picanha Feast is the closest thing in Midtown to a churrasco at your own table: 38 ounces of prime picanha, sliced tableside, for three people, with bacon and egg fried rice, creamy spinach, corn farofa and vinaigrette. The kitchen opens for lunch at 11:30 AM every day, steps from Bryant Park and Koreatown. If your churrascaria near me search was really a craving for picanha with a caipirinha, start here.

Founder Mario de Matos, a Rio-born restaurateur, opened the original Berimbau Brazilian Kitchen on Carmine Street in the West Village in 2009. The 36th Street restaurant followed in 2024 under the Brazilian Table name, and a January 2026 profile in Mann Publications described the move as a transformation into a larger, design-driven room. The New York Times, the Daily News and Eater all mentioned the restaurant in 2026, the last two in World Cup dining guides.

The Carmine Street original still runs at 43 Carmine Street for dinner and weekend brunch. The Infatuation praised that location for its pão de queijo and a moqueca with dendê oil, and both dishes carry over to the Midtown menu. NYC Tourism lists the 36th Street location as wheelchair accessible and Latino-owned.

Picanha, the top sirloin cap, is the cut every churrascaria is judged on, and here it arrives as one large roast rather than skewer by skewer. At $149 for three, it works out to just under $50 a person before drinks, below the $75 dinner churrasco at Fogo de Chão's Brooklyn branch, and with a single premium cut instead of a parade of chicken and sausage. Ask for the fat cap to stay on your slices. That layer is where the flavor lives.

For two people, the Picanha Feast is too much meat. Order the Bife a Cavalo instead, a prime New York strip with an organic egg, fries and herb sauce at $52, plus a Secreto pork cut at $32 to share. Groups of four can add the feijoada, $36, a black bean stew with smoked pork, dried beef, collard greens, rice and bacon farofa, so the table tastes both of Brazil's great meat traditions.

Order the pão de queijo the moment you sit down. The gluten-free cheese bread is $11, with an optional $5 guava and stracciatella dip, and the menu warns it is baked to order and takes 15 to 20 minutes. The chicken coxinha, five croquettes with catupiry cheese and malagueta spicy sauce, costs $17, and mandioca da casa, yuca fries with caramelized onion and parmesan, is also $17.

The moqueca at $42 combines halibut, shrimp, calamari and mussels in coconut milk and dendê broth, and it is the dish to pick if someone at the table does not want beef. The honest skip on a picanha night is the steak tartare at $24: it is good hand-cut tenderloin, but it duplicates the beef you are about to eat, and the tapioca dice called dadinho, $16, is a better shared starter for the price.

The cocktail list runs a dedicated caipirinha bar. The house caipirinha is $17 with Leblon cachaça in classic lime, mango, guava or cashew fruit. The Caipirita swaps in serrano pepper for $18. And the Rabo de Galo, an aged cachaça with sweet vermouth and Cynar, is $22. Non-drinkers get a Brazilian limeade with fresh lime and condensed milk for $13. Brazilian wines appear by the glass, including a Serra Gaúcha brut at $19.

Upstairs, the Second Floor is a Brazilian listening bar with curated themed events and live DJ sets. It is the reason to book a later dinner on a weekend: finish the picanha at 9 PM and move upstairs instead of hunting for a bar in Koreatown. One house policy to know before paying: the menu states a 3% fee on all credit card transactions.

Mann Publications described the design as Brazilian mid-century modern, with tropical hardwoods, woven wicker, terrazzo floors that echo Ipanema's mosaic sidewalks, amber and amethyst linen lampshades under rope-woven ceilings, forest-green booths and a caipirinha bar framed by arches meant to evoke Rio's Two Brothers mountain. Art by David Jose, Justin Amrhein and Waxamani Mehinako hangs in the room, and a frosted-glass private dining room handles groups.

The split service, lunch until 3 PM and dinner from 4 PM on weekdays, makes it a working Midtown lunch room as well as a dinner destination, and the private room and three-person Picanha Feast are built for celebrations. The restaurant's own pitch is the Brazilian table as a place where time slows down, and the long dinner hours support that.

Reservations run through Resy, while bar seating is walk-in only, according to the restaurant's site. Weekday hours are 11:30 AM to 3 PM and 4 to 10 PM, with Friday dinner to 10:30 PM; Saturday runs 11:30 AM to 4 PM and 5 to 10:30 PM, and Sunday 11:30 AM to 4 PM and 5 to 9:30 PM. A solo diner or a pair can usually try the bar first. A group wanting the Picanha Feast should book.

If you want a true all-you-can-eat rodízio instead, Fogo de Chão's Midtown restaurant at 40 West 53rd Street is about a 20-minute walk north up Fifth Avenue. If you would rather stay downtown, the Berimbau original at 43 Carmine Street serves dinner from 5 PM daily and weekend brunch from 11 AM.

The 34th Street–Herald Square station, served by the B, D, F, M, N, Q, R and W trains, is two blocks away, and the Empire State Building at 20 West 34th Street is around the corner. Bryant Park, between 40th and 42nd Streets on Sixth Avenue, is a four-block walk north for an after-dinner stroll, and Koreatown's 32nd Street is a five-minute walk south if the night continues.

Practical notes: 3 West 36th Street, New York, NY 10018. Lunch daily from 11:30 AM; 3% credit card fee; Resy reservations. Walk-in bar. For a first visit with two friends, order pão de queijo the moment you sit, the Picanha Feast, a round of lime caipirinhas, and a brigadeiro, the $12 Brazilian chocolate truffle, to finish.