The carnivore's ball

The Wildfire restaurant in Gurgaon introduces us to churrasco, the traditional Brazilian style of grilling that keeps intact the meat's natural flavours and juices.

Almost six years ago, the Pilot siblings (Sachin and Sarika) set up Delhi's first exclusively "grills" restaurant at PVR Saket. But Suede proved to be a spectacular failure "" some said because of vaastu reasons, but most certainly because the city at that point was not quite ready to experiment.

The capital, of course, has undergone huge changes since then. Attention has shifted from dining to politics for at least one of the siblings, Suede and its many successors have shut shop and BBQ is the hottest new trend to have captured the imaginations of die-hard and aspiring foodies "" and we are not just talking about the tandoor.

Today, you can buy your own electric grill and host a party on the terrace, rains permitting, and you can certainly go to many restaurants for authentic Japanese yakitori, washed down with shots of cold sake in this season.

But now, there is another interesting "grills" place where you can try out even newer flavours: Wildfire, at the newly opened Crowne Plaza Today hotel in Gurgaon, is Delhi's (and possibly India's) first churrascaria.

For the last one year, the world (meaning America and Australia, in particular) has been furiously discovering the traditional Brazilian style of grilling, churrasco, a fusion of South American and European (Portuguese) traditions, where lightly seasoned meat is grilled in a way to keep all its natural flavours and juices intact "" ironically, a "modern" trend in fine-dining today with chefs emphasising the freshness of the produce like never before.

The meats are grilled live in open kitchens at specialising restaurants (the churrascaria) and what has possibly contributed so much to their growing popularity is also the element of showmanship "" chefs, usually dressed as "friendly, young gauchos" come to your table brandishing huge swords of bacon-wrapped chicken or filet, lamb, seafood, tenderloin, ham and what not.

The meat is carved out in front of the guests, who typically use tongs to pull out portions and then go on to demolish these endlessly till hunger or gluttony is satiated!

At Wildfire, a suitably dramatic restaurant with (real) flames in the backdrop, this is pretty much the order that our own meal follows. There is a salad buffet and a soup course that precede the churrasco and there is a lovely chocolate mousse that I've managed to keep space for towards the end but, really, all these are incidentals.

Despite the niceties of a classy five-star setting, we all know why we are here "" to chew on prodigious portions of animal flesh (the menu changes everyday, by the way) just the way those cowboy-equivalent gauchos would have done in the Pampas, early 16th century!

So we get on with the task and go through chicken wrapped with bacon, rosemary-seasoned lamb (imported from New Zealand like at all quality Indian eateries), tenderloin, faintly smoky salmon, delicately-lemon-y prawns and some wonderful, absolutely smashing paprika sausages (from Germany because, like we all acknowledge, the country lacks any decent ones).

The only carbs come in the vegetarian section: stuffed mushrooms, corn tarts, comfort food by way of mashed potatoes and rice with black beans that remind me of our own fried rice, Indian-Chinese style, but which, I suppose, could be a take on paelha (like the Spanish paella but, remember, Brazil was a Portuguese colony unlike its neighbours).

A typical churrascaria would be hard-pressed to find any greens at all but this one being very much in Gurgaon, happily caters to vegetarian palates as well. On the other hand, if you do not want the grills but want to stick to your veggie sensibilities nevertheless, you'll probably have to chew on plain bread.

Which may not turn out to be such an impoverished thing to do really. A woodfire oven ensures that the bread basket is indeed fresh and I was quite tempted to ask for seconds, particularly of the pesto and cheese-topped "bruschetta". ("Some guests", confesses a waiter, "call it the pizza", which may not be so wrong because Italian food is popular in Brazil.) Bread, or pao, invariably, my research suggests, is fresh and hot in Brazil and Brazilians regard anyone eating stale crumbs as "really poor" !

So what will you eat all this grilled food with? There are wines (Argentinian, Chilean) and there is caiparinhas, Brazil's national cocktail, made from lime and cane juice and cachaca, and I would go with the latter "" even if it means holding one's head for the next couple of days! Cheers.