The Grill From Ipanema

I would not come here for the food — my wife got the fillet mignon, and I got the grilled sausages, and neither of us was blown away. The drinks were fine, but also nothing out of the ordinary.
What made this place special was the atmosphere. I am not sure if it is like that every night, but when we went they had live music and at one point most of the dining room (including us) was dancing to the Brazilian rhythms. The friendly service also helped.

A decent meal but mostly a disappointment. They had an extended restaurant week deal, so we went for it. One plus for them, it came with a free cocktail, and the caiprinha is a solid take on the classic.
The food, though, did not live up to our hopes. The Brazilian paella is just ok, with decent seasoning and flavor, but the seafood was wayyyy overcooked, very chewy. I had to try the faijoia, as well, given that they boast it is the Brazilian national dish and all. The sides of rice, beans, and collards were decent but didn’t taste the freshest. However, it also came with a bowl full of juices, and swimming therein is a heaping portion of sausage and ribs that were flavorful and moist. I was pleased there. For appetizers we had the quixones and avocado salad. Quixones were not great, way too cheesy, and the salad was again not fresh tasting and way too simple: lettuce with a pile of guacamole thrown on top.
For dessert we tried the chocolate mouse cake and brazillian cheese mouse with guava sauce. Both were ok but tasted like what you would get from a supermarket, not something baked in house. Maybe they were baked here, but they sure don’t taste like it. I would pass on the sweets.
Although we were unsatisfied with the food, service was excellent, quick and kind and always with a smile.

As always, I like to write a food review after going to a place twice. I’m ready to go back for a third time. I’ve had the Paella and some type of white fish with red stew (can’t remember the name) but they were both amazing. The atmosphere of this place is awesome and looks very authentic. Best of all is that the service is top notch and extremely helpful with their extensive menu.
Also this place wins the award for best restaurant name in DC.

I’ve had Brazilian before in Miami and this place was so-​so. Atmosphere and artwork is cute but food was not that impressive. I had brunch there and ordered a mixed seafood stew and it was just wayyyyy too oily/​buttery. My friend’s salad looked drowned in dressing and the only thing everyone liked was the fried banana dessert. Service wasn’t too bad but I won’t be going back for the food.

It was a good place. Food was fine. Service was fine but it was little bit slow. It is very unique experience eating Brazilian food. But I was not familiar with Brazilian food. If server explained me about the menu, I think I could get better food.

Nothing about the dishes we got was worthy of $ 35 per plate (Restaurant Week). Appetizers: 1) Cogumelo com Siri: weird and served disappointingly on mixed iceberg lettuce. 2) Abacate Maraja: nothing to write home about and also served on a disappointing bed of iceberg lettuce. Main course: 1) Feijoada: The meat was very chewy and the sauce was salty and tasted like meat blood. My boyfriend, who is a meat lover, could not stomach to finish it. 2) Xinxim de Galinha com Camaroes: the one good dish! Ambiance: crowded, was seated very closely to other tables and servers kept bumping my chair.
Overall, very disappointed that I chose this restaurant for my DC Restaurant Week place.

When you’re trying a new restaurant for the first time, a lot can go wrong. When you’re trying a different cuisine for the first time, a lot can go wrong. But for me, everything at the Grill from Ipanema went just right. Between the food, the drinks, and the staff, I had one of the best experiences I’ve ever had at an AdMo restaurant.
Stopped here this past weekend to have drinks with a friend. From the moment I entered, the place felt very authentic. Most of the staff is Brazilian, and many of the regular customers are as well, so you are just as likely to hear conversations being carried on in Portuguese as you are to hear English.
I sat at the bar next to a new friend, a regular who knew exactly what to order. The bartender, Emily, immediately recognized that I was a newcomer and started making recommendations. (I love when the staff at a restaurant knows what’s good and is confident recommending items.)
I ditched my usual whiskey to try one of the many Brazilian drinks that they offered– the caipirinha. I was seated near the door so whenever someone new entered, I felt an unwelcome rush of cold air. But after a couple of caipirinhas, I no longer felt the intermittent chill.
Because I had only planned on having drinks, I made the mistake of eating a couple of hours beforehand. But everything on the menu looked so good that, even though I wasn’t particularly hungry, I had to try something. Since I wanted to keep it light, Emily recommended the coxinhas and fried yucca.
The coxinhas were fried croquettes with shredded chicken and cheese. Delicious. The yucca tasted similar to fried potatoes. A nice side. Both were served with a spicy sauce that was amazing.
The staff was genuinely friendly. As noted earlier, Emily took great care of me. Miriam, a server, was very pleasant. Every time she came to the bar for her drinks, she would crack jokes with the customers seated in the area. And the owner, Alcy, was super nice. The place closed at what seemed to be a little early for a Saturday night, and it was still a little busy at closing time. So every time customers were ready to leave, Alcy would walk them to the door and send them on their way with kind words.
I was one of the last to leave, and a little sorry that they closed so soon. But I’ll definitely be back again.

I am Brazilian. Last night I went for the Mineira Night (food from Minas Gerais). The event was packed, and no tables available. The host called us from the bar when our table was ready, except that she made a mistake and it wasn’t and we had to stand up for 15 minutes. Our options:
— sit with other people (communial table?)
— wait until they improvised a table on a small corner in the corridor. Ok, we chose to wait.
Our table was set up but no waiter approached us. We were sitting with menus on our faces, but no plates and silverware. What a mess.
The decision to leave was when we noticed that people sitting on tables since the moment we arrived were just getting their food. That was 40 minutes, typical in Brazil but unacceptable in the US.

For the money, this place is not worth it.
(Background: I’m an American who lived in Sao Paulo for 2 years and married a Brazilian)
There are a few different types of customers that are likely to be interested in Grill From Ipanema. I’ll address each of them below, based on my experience.
1. You are Brazilian and you are «com saudedes» from Brazilian culture/​food/​drinks
Yes, the menu will remind you of being in Brazil. They serve a bunch of the things that you’re probably missing the most — caipirinhas, feijoada, churrasco, coxinha, moqueca, etc. So you will be able to order things that are commonly ordered in Brazil.
Two problems, however — (1) the food is very expensive, and (2) some of the food isn’t even prepared properly, so you won’t «matar» your «saudades» by eating it. For example, when you order coxinhas (for something like $ 8.99), you will get 4 golf ball sized pieces of coxinha. Sounds pricey, but acceptable. However, the coxinhas aren’t even made with requeijao! It’s mozzarella cheese with shredded chicken… you could go to any number of other restaurants out there, pay half the price, and still get fried mozzarella. After eating my coxinhas, I was left there $ 9 poorer and with an even bigger urge to eat coxinha. Same thing with my «churrasco mixto» — the cuts of meat were bizarre creations that I had never seen in all my travels in Brazil, but what made it worse was that the meat was barely salted at all! In Brazil, the meat is so tasty because they coat it in sea salt. In this restaurant, the meat made my mouth completely dry because it was so bland.
2. You are an American and want to try Brazilian food for the first time
The menu and overall feel of the restaurant are quite Brazilian, so you’ll at least have that. The waiters are mostly native Brazilians, so the service is authentic. However, the food is simply not that good. While the reviews on this site indicate that there are indeed people who find the food enjoyable, I think there is a significant risk that you will be left with a poor impression of Brazilian food by eating here.
Especially considering the price, you would be much better served going to a Brazilian steakhouse («churrascaria»), where for a few dollars more you will be able to have all-​you-​can-​eat meat, fish, salad, sushi, etc. While in my experience American «churrascarias» are inferior to Brazilian ones in price, taste, and variety, American churrascarias have two significant advantages over Grill From Ipanema for you — (1) instead of being locked into one dish, you will be able to try a wide variety of meats, salads, appetizers, etc., and (2) the bang for your buck is infinitely better at an all-​you-​can-​eat restaurant than a $ 25/​plate mediocre a la carte one.
3. You’re hungry and you don’t care what you eat as long as it’s good
At approximately $ 20−30/plate, the food here comes at a premium price. The taste, however, is far from premium. It is bland. The meat needs more salt. The coxinha is missing the premium ingredient (requeijao — an imported cheese from South America) but is served at a premium price. You would be better served either (a) finding a tastier restaurant in this price range, or (b) downgrading to a lower price tier restaurant (the food will likely be tastier). After all, the important thing is whether you feel like you got ripped off — if I pay $ 3 at Taco Bell, I don’t feel like I got ripped off because I know I’m about to eat something cheap and filling. But if I pay $ 50 for dinner/​app/​drink, I expect the food to knock my socks off. This place is not going to do the trick.

Poor service
There was maybe two servers the entire times aired took our drink order and left us there when she finally came back she completely forgot my friends drink tho we had reminded her also we waited over an hour for our food and when we notified the waitress she brushed us off like this happens all the time and did not even offer an explanation or condolence for my birthday dinner it was definitely ruined and I will not return.

Great food for a great price! They have a brunch special for $ 18.95 that totally worth it! Comes with salad/​black beans soup your choice of entrée, dessert and a drink (juice/​champagne/​bloody mary).
The staff is friendly, nice and fast.
Definitely coming back and buzzing to my friends!

The service is very good, the servers are real brazilians –they are very nice people… the food is good and the price very affordable

Delicious! I’m a big fan of Latin cuisine, and The Grill did not disappoint. Caprinihas were delicious and fresh, and the churrasca mixto was a great sampling of the main meats on the menu. Our server was polite, charming, and helped us with the Brazillian pronunciations. You can tell everyone there enjoys working there. The Cod Croquettes were also great, a rare fried food that wasn’t overly greasy and you could tell was freshly made to order.
I will be back!

I enjoyed my time at this place but it received mixed reviews from my friends. Went during restaurant week but I ended up ordering off the menu straight up. I had the Brazilian Paella and it came out piping hot. I would certainly recommend checking it Unilocal for pictures of the dish before deciding to order. Service was very polite but customarily slow… which was fine to me because I understand this is part of the culture. If your in a rush don’t go, I wasn’t and I enjoyed the time waiting and catching up with friends. Best of yet the place is kid friendly.

Admittedly, it’s been a while since my last visit to the Grill from Ipanema, but the luscious fejoada sticks out in my memory like it was yesterday. This is THE place to get fejoada, the Brazilian national dish, a rib-​sticking stew of black beans, dry beef, pork, sausage and smoked meat, served with collards, rice, toasted cassava flour, and orange wedges. Granted, aside from the various all-​you-​can-​eat churrascaria’s around town, there’s not much in the way of Brazilian food in this neck of the woods (caipirinhas, on the other hand, are different story).
If that sounds a bit on the heavy side, don’t worry, they also have seafood, including Moqueca de Peixe a Baiana, a traditional fish stew prepared in a blend of palm oil and coconut milk with cilantro, tomato, onion, scallions and green pepper, in addition to some smaller dishes that they dub «Brazilian tapas», mainly comprised of various croquettes and skewers.
The Grill from Ipanema replaced long-​time Adams Morgan fixture (and formerly DC’s best Cuban Restaurant) Omega so long ago that IT has now become the institution. Popular during World Cup games and although the have a small bar, the patio area makes for great caipirinha sipping in nice weather.

If you wanna know a brazilian food or if you miss it, this is the place!
Excellent black beans, rice and the meat. I loved the food here.

This is a great little spot, this review is only for the bar area as me and my friends came here to grab some drinks. We did not dine in. A few of my friends were celebrating their birthdays, thus 40 of us set out on a all day expedition to hit several bars and restaurants for the day. We came to this bar around 9pm and we had a great time!
The bartenders are super nice and properly attended to me and my friends and believe me, some of them can be hard to deal with especially after they’ve reached a certain level where they no longer can walk a straight line.
They have a unique selection of specialty drinks, i got the Caipirinha, which was really good, i believe it was made with rum and vodka? All these specialty drinks were priced between $ 9 — $ 12.
The décor is beautiful, the dining area was well setup and the bathrooms were clean.
Some reason, of all the places we went throughout the day, 6 of us forgot our CC here at this spot, including me. Luckily when i called them the next morning, they had it saved aside and i went back and picked it up. Had a nice chat with owners and they were very courteous and polite.
I will be back as their food menu looks delicious and to try their other specialty drinks.

I really wanted to like this place.
They charged a cover fee, but it was added to the tab, without any signs or indication that this would be the case. So when the bill came, we were all caught off guard about the charge. They probably should have charged at the door. It was a Sunday night at dinner time, so it doesn’t make sense that there would be a cover charge.
The service was slow. We got there around 7:30, we were done around 9:30. I went during Carnival so there was live music and dancing, so the wait wasn’t too bad because of the distraction.
The food is worth 4 stars. Knock off one star for the SLOW service. Knock off another star for the cover charge on your bill.

For this experience, I feel like I didn’t get the opportunity to fully enjoy it to its entirety due to me being sick. This review is going to cover all of the other bases I usually put in a review with a little less emphasis on the food.
— Service was wonderful. Alex was our server, and he kept checking in when we needed to be checked on. He is extremely friendly, and apparently is a partner of the restaurant who also acts as a server.
— Ambiance is awesome! It is very lively with all the wall décor of Brazilian paintings and portraits plus the walls are covered with color. They had a live band going with the singer dressed up in Carnival attire.
— The space itself is fairly large with it sectioned off into 3 areas. 1. area being the bar with bar seating. 2. dining room where you can see through the glass through to the bar. 3. the dining room with the bandstand. I assume they have music fairly often to section this off from the other part of the dining area. There are cabana style windows that are open that allow you to listen through, but it still limits the amount of noise that comes into the main dining area.
— Bathroom was clean and just as colorful as the restaurant, though questionable if it is handicap accessible.
— The food I did taste was my Brazilian style soup and their passion fruit juice. The soup can be found on their appetizer list for $ 6.95. The fruit juice was $ 4.50. Both totally worth it. The soup I ordered was the Caldo Verde which is potato soup with smoked sausage, collard greens, fresh garlic and onion.
I do need to revisit to get a full experience of the menu, and I will be doing that in the very near future… not to also mention I want to get my hands on their take of a caipirinha.

We really enjoyed our visit to the Grill From Ipanema. We were in DC for my daughter’s birthday and our party of 5 was treated very well by the staff. The owner introduced herself and told us they had been in business for more then 20 years.
The restaurant is quite big and nicely decorated. The tables are not cramped and it feels spacious. All of ours servers were super friendly and attentive.
We had several dishes and everything was very good. I had the COSTELA DE CARNEIRO AO ALECRIM — Grilled whole, rack of lamb, marinated in a red wine, rosemary, curry, powder, garlic and olive oil sauce, served with rice, black beans, and vegetables. This was a great dish and my wife and I shared it as it was huge. We also had a Shrimp and Chicken dish in a Coconut/​Peanut sauce that was excellent. The MEXILHÃO À CARIOCA appetizer was also very good. Large half-​shell green mussels. Prepared in wonderful leek, watercress, garlic and butter sauce.
The Grill From Ipanema has a full bar. Some of the drinks can get a pricey but they were also very good. I would go back on my next visit to DC.