You need to count on the luck to eat Capiau’s redneck dishes

A gate and a wooden stove right behind, in the small kitchen in sight of the curious audience, already make Capiau a botequin different from the others in Rio. Its proposal is to serve rustic food and, for that, Raphael Vidal, the owner of the place, brought from Serra da Mantiqueira the chef Torresmeiro Diego Melão.

The duo ahead of the business gives Capiau legitimacy: we are definitely not in a root restaurant cosplay. Vidal is a scholar of Brazilian popular gastronomy, responsible for simple and honest food houses such as Prainha Bafo and Casa Porto, essential for the revitalization of Largo de São Francisco da Prainha. Melon, cook created in the fields, dominates the technique of country cuisine.

The tavern, in the alley of sardines, in downtown Rio, has in its menu foods that seemed restricted to history books or those who live in the deep interior of the country-standing places where Air Fryer and the microwave oven have no time.

Where most can you find the can, confit lard and stored in a brass before returning to the steaming pot? With this technique of pre-gerene times, pork and ox cuts are prepared, such as the aceived tongue served in the sandwich on cornmeal bread (R $ 32) or in the cheese bread club (R $ 39).

Still in the tin meat snacks wing, there are options for pork, sausage, hang and loin pantry cheeks. All come with green parsley (a tasty green tomato sauce and chili pepper) and the award-winning Parmesan cheese d’Alagoa grated on the spot.

It would be great to have started the meal with Torresmo (R $ 28 half a portion; R $ 55 the whole) of Mestre Torresmeiro. But it was missing. Nor did I have the sardine in the wood (R $ 12) or the caramelized porcoreal (R $ 42). Of the four menu strap options, the only available was the prosaic chips (R $ 35).

It was not my intention to know the house to eat chips, so I ordered the ham sandwich and pantry. Another unavailable dish. Capiau, where inputs come from small producers, is a place where the good old “has, but is over” is heard frequently.

Resilient, I tasted two versions of the cheeks. In the sandwiches, they came perfect, with pronounced flavor after the slow cooking and a cuddly cornmeal bread without being soft. The cheese bread version is eaten with your hands after squeezing a slice of Galician lemon (the fruit-shaped garden) over the meat.

The main ones are served to La Carte or in dishes that vary according to the day-in the occasion, rustic chicken cooked with rice, seasoned beans seasoned with maxixe and carrots, as well as angu (R $ 42). The choice fell on the sausage, also preserved in the can, with the same side dishes. Good choice, which would be better if rice and beans were not warm. The beans, by the way, came without maxixe and carrots because… this version was over.

The pudding of the next table seemed appetizing and was the dessert option. Without holes and syrup that takes a touch of lemon and orange (R $ 15), is a good choice, with the fruits bringing a citrus touch to the candy, which, yes, for what I knew, does not usually miss.