Cherisse Moe

With a name like Ipane­ma, one would ex­pect some­thing grand. Me­dia and spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests who at­tend­ed the me­dia launch of T&T's newest restau­rant last Sat­ur­day evening got just what they bar­gained for. In ad­di­tion to be­ing served tasty slices of sir­loin and Pi­can­ha meats, mouth-wa­ter­ing desserts like Cre'me Brulee' and Opera Cake, din­ers were giv­en a taste of all Ipane­ma has to of­fer.

Lo­cat­ed at 12 Vic­to­ria Av­enue, Port-of-Spain, the Vic­to­ri­an-styled restau­rant, owned by ex­ec­u­tive chef, Yvan Aquing, his moth­er Pa­tri­cia, and his sis­ter Ali­cia, boasts a din­ing area that can seat 54 din­ers, a cock­tail lounge with a spe­cial menu and a pic­turesque out­side deck, per­fect for ca­su­al din­ing.

The in­gre­di­ent that makes this restau­rant stand out, how­ev­er, is its chur­ras­co ex­pe­ri­ence. Pro­nounced shoe-rhas-ko, it is a unique type of grilling cre­at­ed by the Gau­chos of South­ern Brazil in the 1600s, where­by large pieces of skew­ered meat would be slow­ly roast­ed to per­fec­tion over bon­fire pits. At Ipane­ma, din­ers are af­ford­ed a mod­ern in­ter­pre­ta­tion of this cen­turies-old Gau­cho her­itage. The meats are grilled in full view of din­ers, who get to wit­ness the ac­tu­al prepa­ra­tion of the meals while they sat­is­fy their taste buds.

Biggest wow fac­tor

For a set price of $650, plus ten per cent ser­vice charge and 15 per cent VAT, din­ers get con­tin­u­ous ta­ble-side ser­vice by Ipane­ma's well-trained chefs, as well as a com­pli­men­ta­ry Caipir­in­ha-a Brazil­ian na­tion­al cock­tail. But, per­haps the biggest wow fac­tor is that din­ers can eat to their heart's con­tent.

Yes, that means you can eat un­til you can't eat any­more! What­ev­er the palate craves, whether it's beef, pork, chick­en, lamb and sausage, Ipane­ma has it cov­ered. Oth­er de­lec­table of­fer­ings in­clude soups, sal­ads, an as­sort­ment of ar­ti­sanal breads and a se­lec­tion of sauces and condi­ments.

And while the restau­rant is a meat lovers' par­adise, non-meat eaters are catered to in the form of seafood and veg­e­tar­i­an se­lec­tions. Just like its din­ing op­tions, Ipane­ma's lunch menu is quite di­verse, of­fer­ing sig­na­ture "shiz­zle plat­ters," hot-off-the-grill op­tions and an ex­ten­sive sal­ad bar, which start at $150.

De­ter­mined to suc­ceed

Open­ing the fine din­ing restau­rant forms part of Aquing's vi­sion to take the lo­cal culi­nary sec­tor to the next lev­el, and he has quite a sto­ry to tell. Born and raised in Pe­tit Val­ley, the 30-some­thing-year-old chef had to over­come many hur­dles to achieve suc­cess. Aquing, a George Brown Col­lege of Toron­to grad­u­ate, who start­ed off as a dyslex­ic stu­dent of the Es­he's Learn­ing Cen­tre, has al­ways been de­ter­mined to suc­ceed and shat­ter stereo­types.

Will­ing him­self to be any­thing but great, Aquing rose up the ranks in the food and bev­er­age in­dus­try, from ini­tial­ly wash­ing pots and pans in a bak­ery at age 14, to hold­ing key chef and train­ing po­si­tions at top-notch in­sti­tu­tions, such as the Prime Min­is­ter's res­i­dence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel and restau­rants in St Lu­cia and Cana­da. His lat­est ven­ture, Ipane­ma, has the po­ten­tial to be yet an­oth­er suc­cess sto­ry.