Navala Churrascaria — Restaurant in Brisbane City

Okay guys. Navala.

This is the first 4 star I'm giving on here because I feel it's time to be more critical, especially when an establishment is asking this price of you.

Navala is an experience, I suspect that an "experience" restaurant is an unsustainable business model.

My biggest hang up on navala was the service. The staff looked totally uninterested, could barely speak any English. Coming from an immigrant family I have absolutely NO problem with this. But I think the management should be responsible for teaching ESL staff to be more polite when you're paying $100 a head.

You get seated and immediately asked about drinks, that's nice. Although in the same breath the one server who can communicate will ask you if you want the BBQ "all you can eat" platter or not. If you say yes you have 30 seconds before a horde of men armed with kilograms of char grilled meat come out with butchers knives. It really is an experience, and it is fun!

I feel we had no time to settle, and it wasn't as though they had a full house that Friday. staff came across as rude, but it was because They clearly had not had any training in polite English, or how to explain what was being served. I did not like being yelled at from across the table being referred to as "guy" by staff - sir or friend requires the same effort, and is what I expect when being served in a restaurant in eagle street. Sorry if this sounds pretentious, but imagine you only go for one of these type of meals every year as a treat, and that's how you're served.

Beyond that drinks were expensive and totally arcane to the staff - they couldn't or simply didn't want to explain cocktails and gave us the wrong beers. Also the lime cocktail you see was $21.50 sorry team I can't recommend them.

The atmosphere was very, very good. It did feel fun and energetic, the smells were amazing and the fitout was well done.

The food itself was great, even though I think "all you can eat" is a gimmick - for some of you out there you really will get your money's worth! So take that into account when reading this. I also had a few dishes that were so unique I'll not forget them soon! Fried crumbed banana and Cinnamon sugar grilled pineapple were great! Pork, lamb, beef and sausages. Chicken wings, sides and sauce! It's pretty awesome.

If Navala spent an hour or two with staff a fortnight teaching them a sentence in English about the menu, and to call patrons more polite names to get their attention, this would be a 5/5. Navala can do better and I believe they will! I'll visit again soon to see if my experience is the same twice.

TLDR: Expensive delicious all you can eat BBQ that's is a unique and special experience - with a side of...

It was probably the worse of all Churrascaria I ever been. And in s I left the restaurant feeling not just disappointed, but also deeply saddened as a Brazilian who knows how wonderful a churrascaria experience can truly be. Despite all the right conditions being in place — a beautiful venue, sufficient staff on the floor — the overall experience felt lacklustre and uninspired.

The range of side dishes and sauces had potential, and some were indeed quite good, but many appeared to have been sitting out too long, lacking freshness. Salads in particular did not seem fresh, and the fried items were bland and tasteless. As for the meats — they were consistently either too salty, too dry, or simply poorly prepared. It was genuinely surprising (and disheartening) to see so many dishes miss the mark.

One of the most frustrating moments was watching the staff member cut the picanha. It was clear he had not received proper training — instead of slicing it correctly with the fat on the edge to retain flavour, he simply carved off the fatty part without technique. The picanha itself was dry, and whoever was running the churrasco clearly lacked the skill required to keep the meats succulent and tender, as they should be.

Even the final sweet dish — the grilled pineapple — felt underwhelming. With a touch more cinnamon and care, it could have been a satisfying end to the meal, but instead, it was just another missed opportunity. The cocktails, especially the caipirinha, were watered down and lacked any real punch.

To top it off, the staff seemed disengaged, as if they didn’t want to be there — which added a layer of awkwardness and disconnect throughout the evening.

We paid over $240 for a small family of three, with three beers and one cocktail included. It simply wasn’t worth the price. With that kind of spend, I would have expected a much more enjoyable and effortful dining experience — especially in a city where there are many other excellent restaurants in the same price range.

In the end, I left with a sense of missed potential — wishing it had lived up to what a great churrascaria can be. A truly disappointing experience. Gladly we have ‘o brasileiro’ for yummy...

Honestly, I would do 0 stars if I could for this company. For those who actually want to be treated like a customer, and not a pay pig, I would never go here. Not only is it EXTREMELY loud inside, that you can barely talk to anyone near you, but the worst part of the entire experience is the all you can eat buffet. NEVER buy the "all you can eat". And here's why. When you first start, they will bring meat around to you every like 2-4 minutes. Perfect. So I take a slice or two and they move on. An hour in, you'll find you're waiting 20 MINUTES between each meat coming out. 20! We started at 6:45, got a lot of meat very quickly, but then between from 7:20-8pm got meat around 3 times. I underatand busy periods, however, the table next to us also had 6 people, and when they sat down at 7:30 and ordered all you can eat, they had so much meat coming out... But here's the thing people... They would ACTIVELY start giving them meat on their table closest to ours, and then walk to the other side of the table, and when they were done, would walk away with the meat! They would ACTIVELY avoid coming near and asking you if you wanted meat, even if the table next to you was getting meat every couple minutes.

Now this is just a presumption, but I expect they were doing this because they didn't want to continue "wasting" money by feeding more meat to us, even though we were still hungry. They got out money, they gave us a BASE amount, and then they DRIP fed food to us like we paid the basic package or something and we were getting the scraps. I had to actually Ask the lady who served us when she said "anything else", I said "yeah more meat please". The fact I have to ask at an all you can eat.... It's obvious avoidance. It is disgusting business practices, and I understand why they do it, to not be feeding us too much food that we eat more then what we pay... So technically the meal is "all you can eat", but their business practices to pretend you don't even exist, skipping over your table, is disgusting and should be avoided just for this. Will never return, and will tell all my friends to never come...