In Brazil, Michelin only publishes a guide for Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro, because those two cities have the best range and choice of restaurants in the huge country. Nowhere has three stars, but each city has two 2-star restaurants, one of which is Oro in Rio.  Oro describes its food as “Brazilian vanguard cuisine, cooked over fire” which sounded pretty exciting to me, so I made a reservation through their website.  The restaurant is on a street corner a few blocks back from Leblon beach.  Leblon is regarded as the poshest of Rio’s three main beaches (Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon) but the area didn’t seem ‘posh’ when we arrived a little early for our 7pm reservation and had to walk the streets for a while.  But luckily we didn’t encounter any muggers or other unsavoury characters!  Oro is open Tuesday to Friday for dinner and lunch and dinner on Saturdays.  Although ‘oro’ means ‘gold’, the outside is decorated with an artistic weathered metal design (maybe copper?).

The restaurant opened its doors promptly at 7pm and we were shown to our seats at the chef’s table (counter) on the ground floor. Upstairs is a much smaller dining room with another open kitchen and a larger sealed prep kitchen.  In the image above, Chef de Cuisine Rodrigo Guimaraes is on the left, and you can just see the Josper oven behind him.  Oro offers two menus; both have a selection of eleven ‘snacks’, then you can choose either four or two main courses, plus a dessert.  We chose to have the longer menu and its wine flight at BRL895 each (about £141 each).  We were given a mini G&T welcome drink, which helped us to relax and familiarise ourselves with the menu, the kitchen in front of us, and the charming group of young English-speaking staff who were serving us.  I don’t think I’ve been in a 2 star restaurant manned by such a young, enthusiastic and professional team.

Our first snack was an oyster sitting on a pork crackling cracker, with a caipirinha sorbet on top, which we ate by hand. It was so delicate and all of the ingredients’ flavours were present. Delicious 10/10

Next we were presented with “three crisps” each. There was one with ceviche, one with scallops and cashew nuts and a third called ‘Piedrazo’.  Each presented banging flavours. 10/10

We were told our next selection of three snacks each had a Brazilian inspiration.  From the bottom of the above image, there was a sea urchin snack with rainforest herbs, a cheese gougere with a cashew praline on top, and foie gras with coconut.  The latter was a very unusual combination, but it worked. The sea urchin one tasted like a rainforest smells and the gougere was comfortingly good. 10/10

Our next selection was described as “Asian with Brazilian influences”.  We had a smokey steak tartare  temaki cone with cured egg yolk which tasted sensational, sweet potato rice tempura with orange, and a shrimp mocchi with chayote.  Each of these was new for me and I felt a little overwhelmed by the number of new ingredients I was tasting, but they were all absolutely fantastic. 10++/10

Our final snack was titled “pork belly sandwich with pineapple kimchi”. The ‘sandwich’ was a steamed bun, so it looked like a burger (it was in fact inspired by a burger joint on Copacabana), and it was awesomely delicious, sweet and spicy. 10++/10

My first main course was slipper lobster with leek terrine and pistachio puree.  The lobster had been cooked in the Josper oven, over fire, and somehow the chef judged its cuisson to perfection; it was so tender.  But something on the plate, I think it was the leek, was over-seasoned. 9.5/10

For my 2nd main course I chose a vegetarian dish; heart of palm with an ajoblanco (almond and garlic) sauce. It was smokey, garlicky and fresh on the palate, but again I thought something was over-seasoned. 9/10

For my penultimate main course they actually made a little error and brought me a dish I hadn’t ordered. It was simply called “fish and corn” and consisted of a piece of perfectly cooked sea bass topped with barbecued baby corn, all sitting in a fish and mushroom broth. It was a very good dish, but yet again I found the broth to be over-seasoned.  9/10.  Maybe a case of “too many cooks spoil the broth” because at this stage of the evening we could see that chef Rodrigo was looking very tense and stretched. Using a radio he called down the senior sous chef and some others from the upstairs kitchen, which I think had been making most of the snacks.  I got the impression that more than just me had had an order cock-up.

My fourth and final main course was a short rib of beef, cooked sous vide for 16 hours and finished in the Josper. It was served with celery, chestnut puree and bone marrow and had very good flavours. 9.5/10  By this stage, two hours since we sat down, I was feeling full and quite tipsy.

Next, instead of just one, we got three desserts!  The first was called “everything chocolate”: a chocolate fondant tart, chocolate ice cream, ganache and a chocolate shard.  Yummy.  Then there was goat’s cheese ice cream with “milk textures” which included a candy floss-like cloud, milk skin shard and dolce de lecce.  Finally was a deconstructed almond tart with egg yolk ice cream and caja fruit.  They were all very good 10/10

Finally, finally we were served petit fours. We ate some mini churros, and asked them to box up the other sweet goodies for us to take away.  They were all top class 10/10

We had a great meal at Oro and I totally agree with their 2 star rating by Michelin.  The young team promoted a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, the food was outstanding, especially those elements cooked over fire in the Josper oven, and we enjoyed the Brazilian ingredients we’d never tasted before.  Oro is also known for its award-winning sommelier Cecilia Aldaz, and she provided us with a very varied and balanced wine flight, which covered wines from Spain, Slovenia, Brazil and Italy.  Although we were restricted by a language barrier, we did have some pleasant interaction with the chefs, from our counter seats.

Overall 10/10