Benton Park’s Yemanja Brasil Restaurante reopens after 2-month closure and shift in business model

Yemanja Brasil Restaurante, the once-fine-dining Brazilian restaurant at 2900 Missouri Ave. in Benton Park, didn’t know if it was going to make it. In January and February of this year, owners Lemya Sidki and chef Raul Uribe (Sidki’s husband) took drastic measures and, for the first time in 29 years, closed their doors unsure when, or if, they would reopen. But, after securing a loan and lowering prices to create a more casual dining experience to lure new customers, business may be picking up. “The average middle class person can’t afford fine dining anymore,” Sidki said.

The changes seem to be making a difference. Less expensive items like burgers and chicken wings have been added to the menu, and a bigger grill in the kitchen has meant a reduced need to saute. “We’d get through 150 pans a night,” Sidki said. “150 pans is a lot to wash and it’s very stressful.” The couple also has made portions slightly smaller, and lowered prices accordingly: Where a single meal was once $23 to $30, a grill plate for two with a choice of three sides is $38. At the moment, Yemanja Brasil is open four days per week, but on “Thirsty Thursdays” only the bar is open with the full menu still available. “That way, I only need one bartender, and I help out, as well,” Sidki said.

Yemanja Brasil feels like the closest thing to faraway. Who knew, for instance, that (on this block at least), “ocean” slaps on the cobbles; laps at the foundation of a late 1800s row house, and sloshes rhythmically at the struts of its aqua-colored deck? It’s a pity the public doesn’t get to enter through this kitchen to see its workings and appreciate the close quarters in which their food is prepared: Big, handsome Raul in a hairnet, cleaver in hand, moves about like Gulliver in Lilliput. Yes, Uribe is a big man and he’s been cutting steaks the Brazilian way. There they are — crimson and thick — flopping, like mattresses, over the rim of a large bowl. And here’s a colander of collards he shredded earlier. Freshest, greenest leaves you ever saw.

But it isn’t only Brazilian food he is master of. “Whatever it is, he can make it,” Sidki said. Which means, in addition to Brazil’s national dish, feijoada de ogum (a black bean stew with dried beef), Uribe can turn out Mexican tamales with shredded pork, and sirloin burgers with fries.  Once every couple of months or so, he heads to a farm in Illinois and comes home with a slaughtered pig to butcher, wresting it from truck to kitchen where he spends the next nine hours breaking it down. He still invites Sidki to go with him on these outings, but she says she’ll never go.  “What am I married to? A savage?” she says.

Sidki hired Uribe as a cook in 2003. They were married a year later. He’s been heading this tiny kitchen ever since. Even through the lean years, (or perhaps because of them) copious amounts of rum are consumed here. Lemya says a case of cachaça comes in each week from Kansas City (it used to be two) for just four nights of business. While they used to get through 400 limes per week, now it’s “only 200.” 

The restaurant’s food truck was its buoy during the real estate crash of 2008 and, more recently,  the pandemic when she said she lost 20 pounds in two months. The truck is parked out front where there are a few chairs and a low table covered with empty clam shells which look like big white butterflies. “We have little parties. I’m very community-driven and want the restaurant to be accessible.”  In addition to thinking up incentives for diners to help raise money for local programs for low-income people, the couple hosts a street party the weekend after Labor Day. “Two-thousand people. All ages, all colors, all groups,” Sidki said.

With all these carefully considered measures in place, Sidki said she and her husband already are seeing results. “Young people are coming, and they’re coming repetitively. That is what you want,” she said.