Even the most relaxed restaurant experiences require some early admin. Even establishments that would rather defenestrate every biodynamic wine bottle in their cellar than utter the words “allow us to explain our concept” need to give uninitiated diners a vague sense of how everything works. And yet, at Fazenda, a new South American grill in Bishopsgate, there is such an abundance of introductory spiel — about the signature, all-you-can-eat barbecue offering that is paraded around the room, about the exhaustive a la carte menu, and about the bottomless “market table” salad area that servers have all clearly been instructed to never, ever refer to as a buffet — that it is hard to not be put in mind of a convoluted safety briefing at a trampoline park.
If it all sounds a little like a Harvester and a branch of Gaucho had a lightly confounding, glossy baby, then that is apt. For better or worse, that pretty accurately describes the charms and challenges of eating here. Utterly thrilling when it sticks to what it does best, this first London outpost of the hit northern chain nonetheless exhibits a kind of wayward overeagerness. The best thing about Fazenda (which means farm in Portuguese) is that it is sort of too much. The worst thing about Fazenda is, well, that it is sort of too much.
