Churrascaria Near Me in Astoria: Copacabana Brazilian Grill Pay-by-Weight

Copacabana Brazilian Grill at 31-13 36th Avenue in Astoria does not run a rodízio: you fill your own plate from the buffet and the grill, and the cashier puts it on a scale. The restaurant's own site says everything is calculated by weight and that the grill turns out more than 15 cuts, from picanha and short ribs to garlic top sirloin and grilled chicken hearts. If your churrascaria near me search is really about eating good Brazilian beef in Queens without committing to a $70 all-you-can-eat, this is the counter to know.

In Brazil, a restaurante por quilo is the everyday lunch format: hot dishes, salads and grilled meats on a line, priced by weight rather than by the person. Copacabana brings that format to 36th Avenue. There is no green or red card and no gaucho circling the room; you take a plate, walk the hot and cold buffet, then stop at the grill station where the cook slices meat off the skewer for you. A 2017 visitor described staff explaining each skewer on request and cutting sirloin to order.

That structure changes the strategy. At a rodízio, the cheap fillers are the trap because you have already paid for the meat. Here, every spoonful of rice and pasta adds weight to the bill, so the move is to lead with the grill and treat starches as garnish. Give Me Astoria, the neighborhood site, named it the Best Change of Pace on 36th Avenue and called it a lowkey pay-per-pound, self-serve buffet, which is exactly how locals use it on a weeknight.

Founder Jose Bezerra named the restaurant after the Rio de Janeiro beach, and the official About page dates the Queens operation to April 2003 and calls it the pioneer of Brazilian barbecue in town. Gothamist, profiling the family, traced its roots further back to a Brazilian pizzeria opened in 1998 and reported that Bezerra came from Fortaleza by way of São Paulo, with his nephew Luis Bezerra working every job from cashier to manager over the years.

The family also runs a second Copacabana at 80-26 Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, and offers catering for birthdays, office meetings and private events from a rotating menu of meats, salads and desserts. Gothamist described the Astoria dining room as packed with a mix of Brazilian Americans and other Astoria locals,; the restaurant's own pitch is that it should become your daily place to eat, and takeout is built into the format for anyone heading home on the N or W.

The official list of grill cuts reads like a Brazilian butcher counter: picanha, skirt steak, short ribs, top sirloin, top sirloin with garlic, pork and chicken sausages, roasted pork, lamb and chicken, plus coração de frango, the grilled chicken hearts that Brazilians order by the skewer. Gothamist singled out the picanha as the house reputation. Take two or three slices with the fat cap left on, a length of sausage and a few chicken hearts, and you have tasted the grill in a plate that stays light on the scale.

From the buffet, the site lists black beans, feijoada, pasta, lasagna, rice, a cold salad bar, soups and a hot table of Brazilian home cooking. One small ladle of feijoada over rice is the classic pairing with grilled beef. The honest skip is the pasta and lasagna: they are heavy, priced at the same rate per pound as the picanha, and nothing you could not get elsewhere on the block. Recent Yelp complaints about tired rice and beans point the same way.

The drinks cooler leans Brazilian, with Guaraná soda and Brazilian juices on the official menu. Guaraná, made from the Amazonian guaraná berry, is the default pairing with salty grilled meat, and a cold can at the register is part of the routine for many regulars. The site also advertises homemade desserts, and the 2017 visitor's favorite was the passion fruit pudding, a tart maracujá dessert that cuts through a plate of sausage and sirloin better than anything chocolate.

Because everything is self-serve, you can eat at a table or ask for the plate to go; delivery runs through DoorDash, Uber Eats and Postmates links on the restaurant's site. If you are feeding a group at home, the catering option works out simpler than juggling five delivery orders, since the restaurant builds the meat-and-salad spread for you.

Google Maps currently lists the Astoria location open from 11 AM to 10 PM, and the restaurant's own homepage advertises lunch and dinner. The official site still shows an older 10 AM to 11 PM line, so trust the Google listing for the current schedule. Buffet meat is best when it has just come off the skewer, so watch for the cook carrying a fresh skewer to the station and time your trip to the grill accordingly rather than taking slices that have been sitting.

The 36th Avenue station on the N and W lines sits at 31st Street, and the restaurant is a short walk along 36th Avenue toward 32nd Street. If the room is full and you would rather sit down to a classic rodízio, Rio Bonito, Favela Grill and Villa Brazil all serve Brazilian grilled meats in Astoria, but none of them weighs your plate, so the bill works differently.

Pair lunch with the Museum of the Moving Image at 36-01 35th Avenue, a few blocks north and east, which covers film, television and video game history and opens Thursday through Sunday. Next door is the historic Kaufman Astoria Studios lot, where the museum sits inside a former studio building; you can see the gated backlot from 36th Street.

For a Brazilian shopping stop, 36th Avenue has long been the spine of Astoria's Brazilian community, and local guides have pointed visitors to Brazilian groceries on this stretch for pão de queijo mix, farofa and cans of Guaraná to take home. Eating the World's 2017 tour of Brazilian Astoria listed Rio Market at 32-15 36th Avenue, a grocery with a café counter, a block from Copacabana.

Address: 31-13 36th Avenue, Astoria, NY 11106. Service is self-serve and priced by weight for both dine-in and takeout, and there is no reservation system, so walk in. Catering is booked directly with the restaurant.

For a first visit: start at the grill, take picanha, sirloin with garlic and a few chicken hearts, add a spoon of feijoada, a small salad and a Guaraná, skip the pasta, and save room for the passion fruit pudding. Pay at the register by weight, and you will know exactly what the meal cost before you sit down.