Grill Hall in Maple Grove, MN

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Your Home for the Most Amazing Barbecue

Expertly Cut and Masterfully Cooked

Grill Hall Churrasco in Maple Grove is a partnership between Eliane Strouth  the owner of Lily’s Cafe and Master churrasqueiro Marcio Demoarais.  Both are natives of Brazil, who relocated  to Minnesota,  both with a deep need to keep a connection to back home thus Grill Hall was born. 

Grill Hall is more than a just churrascaria (pronounced: shur·uh·skaa·ree·uh) For one thing it is also a continuation of Lily’s  every morning and afternoon we still bring the same great breakfasts and lunches that have become a tradition here in Maple Grove the same  “Darn Good Eats” that people have come to count on us for.

Grill Hall is a gathering place for family and friends, a place that no matter where you are from that you can call home.With great food for a special occasion, or a not so special occasion!

All of our food prepared with great care and craftsmanship, to convey  not just a great meal, but the traditions that it is based upon. This isn’t just a meal, this is history, Oh and did we mention a wine cellar the Gaucho’s could never have dreamed of?

A Brief History of Churrasco

The story of Churrasco; which really is just the Portuguese word for Barbecue,  is older than Brazil itself, going back to the 1600’s in Sete Povos das Missões, a community created by the Jesuits- members of the Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic order of religious men founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola who were performing missionary work in western Rio Grande (which then included parts of Argentina and Paraguay). They formed the Jesuit Reductions between 1609 and 1756, an almost fully independent territory one that was famous for its resistance to enslavement and its egalitarian laws based on the Bible. The seven Jesuit missions were to be dismantled and relocated on the Spanish western side of the Uruguay River. The Guarani people living there refused, which led to the Guarani War, which would be won by Portugal and Spain.

The Guarani people tended herds of livestock, which began roaming free and growing in numbers after the community was raised to the ground. At the time, many saw little value in grazing sheep and cattle, preferring gold instead. Which created a need for supplies and the introduction of Tropeiros – troop and commissions drivers of horse, cattle and mule moving between regions in Brazil. These tropeiros would make brief encampments before moving on, but not before their enjoying their basic meal, which consisted of fresh meat roasted over hot stone coals on the ground and seasoned with a little ash.

This became the earmark for the first cycle in how the territory that would be Brazil came to be settled. The second involved the nomad herders that spent the long winters in the region. Wherever they stopped they began settlements, which often became cities. And just as the tropeiros subsisted on meat, so did the herders, only now they added salt.

Churrasco had become a common in the developing history of southern Rio Grande do Sul, one and that role only became more important continued in that role during the third cycle, huge ranches had sprung up, and the Gauchos who worked on them had to travel vast distances to herd their cattle. During the weeks and months that they were out on the range, these Brazilian cowboys ate barbequed meat, which was nutritious and easy to make with all the meat at hand. It was at this point that churrasco took on the form we recognize today, with a fire pit surrounded by skewers of meat stuck in the ground.

Today of course we replace the fire pit with the rotisserie grill, and sticks with skewers, but the fundamental recipes are the same, or course now we have a pretty fantastic salad buffet too…sometimes history can be improved upon!

Welcome to Grill Hall