Risky business for gutsy boy from Brazil

There's no great tradition of Brazilian cuisine," says David Ponté, who has invested £5 million and five years creating Mocotó, a Brazilian restaurant. Mocotó is a Brazilian consomme and also a "gutsy person".

Ponté is clearly that. I hadn't planned on meeting him when I went to his new venture in its illfated Knightsbridge site, formerly Oliver Peyton's Isola. (It should have been called Isolated as there was rarely more than one diner.) But he was there and he is so enthusiastic.

With Mourad Mazouz, he opened Momo in Heddon Street in 1997 and kickstarted a passion for Moroccan food and a lackadaisical, exotic vibe. It remains successful. He is now trying to do the same for Brazilian food and culture.

"I was born in Sao Paolo," he says, "and I love the vibrant boteco [bar] society. People chatting, drinking, eating pasteis de carne [fried beef pastries] and bolhino de bacalhau [salt cod fritters]." With that, some arrive at my table with a pink grapefruit caipirinha. (I should note I am paying.)

The pastries are crumbly, the cocktail zings. "Everything is from Brazil," says Ponté, misty-eyed. Even the architect, Isay Weinfeld, is Brazilian. The vast space is split in two and we are upstairs, at street level, behind huge windows. This is the boteco that will open all day serving coffees, cocktails and dishes such as coxinha, a potato, chicken and Catupiry cheese fried dumpling. They will serve breakfast pastries and coffee at the communal table.

Mocotó was supposed to open last year but there were issues over the wood Ponté wanted from a Brazilian forest. Even the glasses come from Brazil. This authenticity is admirable but the time, energy and money Ponté has invested leaves him nervy and, much as I like the guy, I fear he has good reason to worry. The serious eating, where he'll be hoping to make serious money, is downstairs. But beyond nuts, cocktails and waitresses, why go to an upmarket Brazilian restaurant?

The country has a 4,000km coastline and they do eat oysters, scallops and prawns but the focus is on informal street food. There's Portuguese and Lebanese influence in the Beirute, a toasted flatbread steak sandwich, and they like black beans, pork and kale. It's not exciting.

Accessed down a remarkable, back-lit yellow onyx staircase Weinfeld has created a wonderful room but it's still a basement. Knightsbridge slick with animal-skin Sergio Rodriguez chairs, it's no Brazilian neighbourhood joint. I went for the caldinho de feijao, a black bean soup with bacon, kale and scallops. The scallops were tasty and juicy but plonked in black beans reduced to a baby food sludge.

My friend Nick went for casquinha de siri, a crab gratin with shallots, Parmesan and garlic breadcrumbs. He found it sickly and gunky. It looked like a starter from Abigail's Party. I had the cozido: guinea fowl, white beans, chorizo and inhame (yam). It was perfectly edible but nothing special, Nick's picanha ( chargrilled rump) was excellent but the fries made from cassava (a shrub better used in building canoes) were not.

We were coerced by our waitress Isadora to try the feijoadinha. "We eat this every day in Brazil," she said. It is smoked pork ribs and sausages, sundried beef with braised black beans, kale and farofa (a smoky, salty, dried tapioca resembling dandruff). It doesn't look pretty but would have tasted OK, had I been stuck down a Brazilian mineshaft with nothing else. This is basic stew-like food for £16.