Light my Fire

Sabor Brazilian Churrascaria
777 North Water Street
414-431-3106

“Fat is the canvas upon which the flavor flows. It’s the glue that sticks the flavor particles to your tongue,” David Piette, Executive Chef of Sabor Brazilian Churrascaria, avers. It’s not that the meats his gauchos serve on giant skewers are lardy. Far from it, the cuts and quality are exquisite. There’s just enough fat to float the heady “sabor” over the palate.

Piette’s menu is an Atkin’s dieter’s wet dream – all the meat you can eat served continually or “rodizio style.” Neither owner Paul Berlin nor Greg Meyer of Oscar, Inc. have been to Brazil, but they loved the concept of Brazilian-inspired barbecues that recreate the bountiful campsite meals of Brazil’s Southern cattle country.

Piette orchestrates a theatrical dining experience with an expansive first course salad bar (a panacea for vegetarians) and roving Brazilian gauchos serving as much meat as you can eat from giant skewers. He was hired before the restaurant opened in January, 2006. “There were no walls, wires were hanging from the ceilings and we were using the deli next door for the bathroom.”

He developed the recipe for the traditional Brazilian gluten-free cheese bread from extensive study and experimentation. “The gauchos kept telling me it wasn’t like what their moms made at home. After four months of failing, one of the Brazilians leaned over and said, ‘My mother boiled it.’ The flour won’t bloom until you boil the liquids.” Eureka. The rolls that greet every diner are dynamic little blasts of flavor.

Meyer’s wife, Angel, challenged him to make the best flan in the world, and he nailed it with a caramelized custard of milk, eggs and sugar. Piette was also responsible for “scripting,” or how to greet guests and shepherd them through their dining experience. He wrote a 15-page training manual and with the touch of a button translated it into Portuguese and then, just for fun, into Korean!

Piette was a late bloomer. He wandered through schools (UWM and later MATC’s culinary program) without finishing degrees and explored various careers, including several years apprenticed to one of the leading glass blowers in the country, without finding his niche. Then, accidentally, he found career and family from an eight-bucks-an -hour oyster-shucking job at Eagan’s.

Almost immediately he clicked with cookery, although his only prior food service experience was grilling and selling corn at Grateful Dead concerts to pay for gas to join the gypsies who followed the band. The seafood station at Eagan’s gave him a perfect view of the bartender, Ann, whom he married four months after they met. He admits that at the time, he probably wasn’t exactly the package her parents were hoping for. Their daughter was just finishing her master’s degree and her betrothed was a peon. Ann, of course, saw his promise and fostered his career.

She connected him with his two major mentors: Scott McEvoy at Zappa’s, who took him on as sous chef, and NStars Restaurant Group Executive Chef Mike Wolfe, who gave him the same position at North Shore Bistro. This on-the-job training was all he needed to land executive chef positions at major food service operations including Images Café at the Milwaukee Art Museum and later the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Working for non-profits, Piette had to create menus that met a plethora of needs within squeaky-tight budgets. At Images, that included a kid’s menu, brats for out-of-towners expecting Milwaukee’s German cuisine and refined soups and salads for the upscale artsy crowd. At the Milwaukee Public Museum, he oversaw daily service for 400 Roundy’s employees plus all the on-site food operations and banquets for upwards of 4,000 people.

At 40, the father of two has hit his stride. Daily, he lives out his father’s sage instructions to think outside the box, keeping in mind that “prior planning prevents poor performance.” He is as much a leader as he is a chef – still, this past summer, he was humbled when invited to participate in East Town’s Battle of the Chefs. “I was petrified. I’m largely self-taught and I was up [against] my contemporaries who had studied at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) and in Europe. I thought ‘They must know more than me, so how do I stand a chance next to them?’” But in the final round, Piette came in second, just one point behind his mentor, Mike Wolfe. That, to Piette, was a clear win.VS