Caroline Martins to open second restaurant in Manchester

Chef Caroline Martins has announced the opening of her second Manchester restaurant, Brasa, offering Brazilian barbecue centred around the traditional churrasco style of grill cooking.

It follows the success of her Brazilian tasting menu restaurant Sampa, which opened in the city in 2024 after Martins ran a series of pop-ups and appeared on the BBC’s Great British Menu.

Brasa is due to open later this spring and will offer guests an à la carte menu with a focus on the grill, including barbecued flatbreads such as pão de alho or garlic bread, and cheese bread or pão de queijo, served with caramelised onion butter.

Salgadinhos, a selection of Brazilian croquettes filled with chicken, beef and cheese, will be paired with smoked chilli mayo, while prime cuts will include barbecued picanha rump served with annatto-seasoned julienne fries and a requeijão peppercorn sauce, as well as platters such as linguiça na chapa, featuring pork sausage and onions with Brazilian condiments, served family-style.

Sides will range from hand-cut, skin-on fries tossed in annatto seasoning to feijão preto of black beans with garlic, bacon and coriander, and a fresh heart of palm salad with cherry tomatoes, black olives, red onion and parsley.

Martins was raised in the suburbs of São Paolo and moved to Texas to work in academia. She switched the laboratory for the kitchen and enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu in London in 2017, followed by training in Italy and London before her relocation to Manchester.