Warrington welcomes new restaurant: Rio Brazilian Steakhouse

Being sited in the building that once homed Warrington's ill-fated branch of Prezzo, the new restaurant has transformed the area.

Standing apart from the other buildings in the old marketplace, Rio is incredibly hard to miss as you walk out of the Golden Square and into the trimmed-up marketplace.

Sides are included in the price of your meal, as well as trips to the salad bar (Image: Newsquest)

The concept for Rio is simple: it's a Brazilian barbecue and steakhouse restaurant.

That means when you are seated by a staff member, you're presented with a card that has a green face and a red face.

When you place the card green side up, that means "Yes, I'd like you to bring some barbecued meat over, please," and the red side means "I've got enough food to be going on with, I don't want to burst."

Essentially, it is an all-you-can-eat restaurant, with a twist - instead of buffet-style, the food is cooked fresh and brought out to you.

Before even getting to the meat, the salad bar is well worth a trip - and before you think as I did, and turn your nose up at the thought of a salad bar, this isn't like you've seen before.

Packed with international meats and cheeses, as well as salads, rice, roast potatoes, bread, dips, and more, this salad bar is well worth a trip.

After all, we're not cavemen anymore, we should probably have some roughage with our barbecued meat.

But the salad bar clearly isn't one that's been designed to fill you up so you can't eat as much of the expensive meat as you'd like - it's packed full of great pairings with the meats, and I can honestly say it's the best salad bar I've ever seen.

Speaking as someone who has an aversion to salad bars, I'd say Rio's is well worth the trip - which is saying something.

In terms of the meat itself, everything is cooked to perfection.

Overall, the restaurant serves around 15 different cuts of meat, including beef, chicken and pork, as well as lamb.

From rump, sirloin, and topside of beef, to pork belly and sausages, plus chicken wings and thighs.

The meat is cooked medium-rare, and is sliced right at the table (Image: Rio Brazilian Restaurant)

Included in the price of your meal is the unlimited salad bar and barbecued meats, plus sides of fries, Brazilian cheese bread, and croquettes.

The sides, by the way, were phenomenal - some of the best fries I've ever had, actually.

I won't lie, and it seems pretty redundant to say this, but there is a lot of meat on offer, so be prepared for that.

I'll hold my hands up, here: I would never normally choose to go to a steakhouse for food, it isn't my personal preference.

But I can honestly say that trying the food at Rio has probably changed my mind - no doubt every other steakhouse I head to will be a disappointment compared to this, though.

So, if you like a barbecue, you like a lot of food, you like incredibly high-quality food, and you fancy something different, this might just be the place for you.

Rio Brazilian Steakhouse can be found at Unit 21 in the town centre, opposite the Christmas markets in the old marketplace.