Management has the same problem at Rio de Janeiro, a nearby restaurant, and Soho's Riodizio, two of the city's 25 Brazilian restaurants (there are many more Latin-themed eateries), eight of which have opened in the last 18 months. Their appeal -- all the rotisserie-roasted animal flesh you can stuff in your face for about $30 -- isn't limited to gluttons, Latins or those on the high-protein Atkins diet, however. David Rosengarten, co-host of the Food Network's "In Food Today" and a former restaurant reviewer for Gourmet, can land a table anywhere in town. On his nights off, he hits Churrascaria Plataforma. "All things Latin are very hot right now, and Brazil is the fresh face on the block." he says. "It's a culinary cross between mucho and macho."

"The caipirinha," he adds, sipping the margarita-like lime, booze and sugar concoction, "is the drink of the decade. It's made with a distillate called cachaca, from sugar cane, and the quality of the high is dizzying. One gets you buzzed off your can. After four, I'm hearing bossanova music, seeing palm trees sway and wishing I were dancing the samba with Carmen Miranda on the beach."

Restaurants and cocktails aren't the only Brazilian imports hitting Manhattan like a tsunami this summer. For the legions who can't afford a summer on Long Island, Brazilian dancing, food and drink is an escape, a way of thumbing ones nose at the Bobos (Bourgeois Bohemians) who flee the city each summer. What man would rather hang out at the Della Femina bar in East Hampton with horsey socialites when he could be dancing to Astrud Gilberto with a dark-eyed beauty at Via Brasil? And what woman would rather adopt the last decade's pale, crouched-waif look when she could be at Rio Chic, an instant billboard for fun, sun and surf (never mind that she shares a grim studio two blocks from Macy's and works 24/7 at a dot-com).

Sizzling Brazilian models, fashion designers and salons are influencing New York women to adopt the sultrier country's carefree, sensual aesthetic with revealing clothing and loose, cascading hair. Boobs, butts and pierced brown skin are back. Extreme waxing is de rigueur (Brazilians prefer their bikinis and their sandals thonged). Clothes are jewel-toned, sequined or light leather. Forget SPF, face makeup and your Fire Island time share. Less Rio than São Paulo -- Brazil's Los Angeles and New York counterparts -- the mood is gritty, nocturnal and utterly urban.

The Brazilian invasion began last winter during the New York and London fashion weeks. Twenty-year-old Gisele Bundchen emerged as the season's "It" girl, and she shows no sign of disappearing. Gisele, who is always referred to by her first name, is a Rapunzel-haired São Paulo-born Amazon with a feral face and a body that makes men and women cry, though for different reasons. She epitomizes the fashion industry's current obsession with the girls of Rio, São Paulo and -- judging from a recent issue of Vogue -- Ipanema. Her fcompatriots, Fernanda Tavares, Caroline Ribeiro and Fabiane Nunes, are also making a splash. All boast bronzed, sand-dusted skin and vaguely exotic (though not "too ethnic") faces.

Gisele, the current ruling face and body in the modeling world, commanded $7,000 a day to strut the runway last fall. She also boosted the career of designer Fause Haten, a fellow Brazilian, by romping free-of-charge in his pearl and sequin-embroidered pants and dresses, which are now selling out at Bergdorf's. São Paulo-based Alexandre Herchcovitch wowed the London fashion press; now his creations hang in the toniest shops in Europe, Japan and New York. "Ipanema Girl," a line of sexy, strappy footwear, is one of Bloomingdale's bestsellers this season.

Though it remains to be seen if the Brazilian look will last through the fall, Ribeiro and Tavares have both landed contracts with Ralph Lauren and Gucci, and Gisele graced the summer 2000 swimsuit issue covers of Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Elle and W. Her status as the model of the moment was cemented last spring when the New York gossip pages caught her smooching Leonardo DiCaprio at Moomba. The late 1990s saw "the English girls, the Israeli girls and the Russian girls," says Marilyn Gaulthier, who owns the New York modeling agency Marilyn. "Now it's the Brazilian girls." Brazilian places seem to have similar allure; this spring, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Jane, Cosmopolitan and Elle set sexy multipage fashion shoots in São Paulo, Copacabana Beach, Sugarloaf Mountain and downtown Rio de Janeiro.

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