The 50-seat restaurant will be Mendes' first as an owner; he most recently served as chef de cuisine at Theodora in Brooklyn.
Named for the water goddess of Amazonian legend, iara will feature an open kitchen and a menu built around Brazilian and Amazonian ingredients, including cassava, jambu, tucupi and açaí.
The menu includes pão de queijo, hamachi crudo with pineapple leche de tigre and jambu, moqueca with red snapper, and picanha with cassava fries.
Mendes, who was born in Brazil and raised in the United States, returned to Brazil in 2021 and spent a month in the Amazon learning about the region's ingredients and cooking.
"My vision for iara is to raise awareness and educate diners about the ingredients that have shaped Brazil and the Amazon region over the years," Mendes told EVG in an email.
No opening date has been announced yet.
4 comments:
This is very interesting! Brazilian food is awesome, and so much broader than the typical Brazilian steak houses we see.
Note to Grieve: the link to iara takes me your post about the Rush pop-up, not to their website/IG.
Thanks for letting me know about the errant link, Mr. Nice Guy! I was working on the Harry Styles pop-up right before this one...
There are plenty restaurants in NYC with non steakhouse Brazilian menues. Definitely am awesome cuisine .
Any time! As a side note, the line for the Harry Styles pop-up today was longer than any line I can remember in the EV. It literally stretched for blocks -- in both directions somehow!
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