Gustavo Rosenstengel has been busy since opening his dream restaurant a few weeks ago.
He’s everywhere at once when you enter the little blue building on Garfield Street in downtown Lafayette — manning the grill, melting provolone cheese over sandwiches, and greeting customers as they come in to try a staple of Rosenstengel’s childhood in southern Brazil: real gaucho barbecue.
The name “Santa Picanha” glows in red letters on the awning, which roughly translates to “Saint Beef” in Portuguese. Picanha is the most popular cut of beef in a nation that prizes barbecue, and Rosenstengel spends much of his time turning skewers of juicy beef, sausages, chicken thighs and pork over the restaurant’s multi-tiered grill, which is open to the dining room.
Everything gets its turn over fire here — hunks of garlic bread, marinated cauliflower, chicken hearts. Rosenstengel, who is from Porto Alegre, wanted to provide an experience that’s closer to what he knows back home, instead of the all-you-can-eat service that’s typical at American Brazilian steakhouse chains…