Dos locales de barbacoa con menú libre de alimentos encienden Astoria

Two AYCE barbecue joints, a Colombian piqueteadero and a Brazilian rodizio, have lit up Astoria. S-Meat & Hueso stands at 35-50 31st Street, near the corner of 36th Avenue, right at the steps of the 36th Avenue N/W subway stop. Just two blocks away, Rio Bonito Grill occupies 33-01 36th Avenue on the corner of 33rd Street.

The two new additions clinch southern Astoria as a hotbed of global barbecue, with Bosnian-style Sarajevo Grill; Afghani-owned Sami’s Kabab House; Copacabana, a Brazilian by-the-pound churrasco; and Pig Beach, a southern American-style joint, all located within 13 blocks of each other. With their own particular inflections, S-Meat & Hueso and Rio Bonito Grill add new facets to the multicultural mix that reflects Queens’s prolific diversity. As of 2022, 46.9 percent of residents are foreign-born, the highest of all the boroughs.

What makes the new entrants stand out from the other havens of meat is their AYCE choose-your-own cuts framework in a neighborhood that’s been racked with record-setting rents, luxury developments, and gentrification on top of city-wide inflation. Included in the AYCE offer ($40 at S-Meat & Hueso; $35 at Rio Bonito Grill) are a variety of meats and sides. As far as the meats go, there is an overlap: They both offer sirloin, short ribs, skirt steak, and picanha, seasoned with just salt and served still sizzling, at any desired doneness and quantity. From there, they split into their own cultural takes.

Co-owners and cousins Andres Mosquera and Jaime Contreras (who are also behind Don Pancho Villa in Williamsburg) styled S-Meat & Hueso after the casual, countryside piqueteaderos of the Cundiboyacense region of Colombia, where they grew up.

“There are a lot of traditional Colombian restaurants with rice and beans, the white arepas” said Contreras. “We’re bringing food from a completely different region.”

Following native customs, S-Meat & Hueso serves house-made morcilla, cuajada cheese-stuffed yellow arepa that’s sweet and savory, and tiny yellow potatoes fried until the inside is as soft as mashed potato.

“I haven’t had this since I was in Colombia” said Susana Huacuja, a customer who has visited twice already. “This place is trending in the Colombian community. We’ve never heard of a Colombian all-you-can-eat place before.”

If you haven’t yet been, start with one piece of each meat to determine which you’d like to reload up on.

While S-Meat & Hueso is a newcomer to the neighborhood, Rio Bonito Grill has roots that go back to 1994, when owner Ricardo Bastos launched Rio Market, a pioneer among the Brazilian community of Astoria.

Customer Rafael De Marco Teixeira has been visiting the market for 12 years and has seen it grow with the installation of a buffet bar and dine-in seating. Now, right across the street, the sister restaurant dedicated to rodizio has opened, serving unlimited meats at the table.

“This is just literally what I’ve been waiting for” he said on a recent Wednesday evening. “Rodizio is embedded in our culture. It was missing in the neighborhood.”

Per rodizio customs, the AYCE offer at Rio Bonito Grill also includes unlimited baskets of hot pao de queijio, bread plucked hot out of the oven with cheesy dough pulls similar to mochi. A buffet bar in the back holds assorted hot dishes like rice, feijoada, fish stew, and salads.

The meat, though, is king. “It’s the enchantment of seeing a big skewer coming to the table and the guy slicing the meat in front of you” said Bastos.

Rio Bonito Grill is open Tuesday through Thursday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. AYCE is offered during all open hours.

S-Meat & Hueso is open Sunday through Thursday from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. and Friday and Saturday from 2 p.m. to 4 a.m. The AYCE option runs from Monday through Thursday, 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.