First Impression of the Argentine Ski Experience

by Brittany Davis

Argentina has a number of renowned ski resorts. And though none is as big or as high-tech as the leading resorts in Europe or North America, some are quite impressive and attract visitors from around the world every year.

Argentina has nine ski resorts, four most popular of which are Cerro Catedral in Bariloche, Las Leñas in the mountains outside Malargue, Penitentes accessible through Mendoza, and Cerro Chapelco in San Martin de los Andes.

If you’re planning an Argentine ski vacation this winter don’t expect to be able to go “resort-hopping” because these resorts are at least a day’s journey from each other along the winding Eastern slope of the Andes.

Cerro Catedral in San Carlos de Bariloche doesn’t have the highest altitude of the Argentine resorts and typically doesn’t get the most snowfall, but it’s widely considered the No. 1 ski resort in South America with 38 lifts and 120 km (46 miles) of accessible mountain terrain. Ski and snow related activities draw crowds that help account for Bariloche’s 200,000 yearly visitors.

Bariloche is a town fueled almost entirely by tourism. In the summer months between December and February, the beautiful lakes and stunning mountain scenery draw mostly domestic tourists. But now, as we enter the three week winter vacation and dark storm clouds threaten snow, more and more ski rental shops put out signs in Portuguese and English to welcome new arrivals from Brazil and beyond. Complete package rentals for skis and snowboards go for between 50 and 60 pesos in town and between 75 and 100 pesos at the ski resort.

So far this winter’s snowfall has been entirely unimpressive, but Cerro Catedral opened its lifts on July 7 and, with the help of snow-making machines, they now have eight lifts open (including the six-man summit chair). They hope to have almost all 38 up and running with the next major snowfall.

Nobody here in Bariloche seems surprised at the disheartening lack of snow. Local skiers say that last year the mountain didn’t get “decent” snow until September. Some blame global warming and say that the winter isn’t just starting later in the year, but its also getting progressively shorter. Old-timer locals say that this is just how it is; some years are dryer than others.

For North American and European skiers used to a five month ski season, Bariloche’s three-month ski season is surprisingly short. At the corresponding latitude in the Northern hemisphere, there are no low altitude glaciers. Just 200 miles away from Bariloche lies one of the world’s only advancing glaciers, Perito Moreno, at just 720 feet above sea level. Patagonia is said to be at the end of the world, suggesting severe temperatures and weather. But while Bariloche is considered the gateway to Patagonia, it gets just three months of “real winter” per year. This is mainly because the Andes block much of the winter weather coming from the Pacific, so the Eastern slope of the Andes gets just a fraction of the snow that Chile’s Western slope does.

Now, in the first few days of Bariloche’s official ski season, temperatures are hovering from 1-13° Celsius (or 33.8° and 55.4° Fahrenheit) as the streets downtown become noticeably busier.

Stores and restaurants in the city center are hoping for more visitors than last year, when the local economy saw a significant decline in tourism. Some hotels and tour companies have lowered room and excursion prices to help families justify a family ski vacation this year.

Besides the obvious differences between Northern and Southern Hemisphere skiing (like the fact that their seasons are opposites), there are some less noticeable yet noteworthy differences.

Argentine Lucas Buzzerio has spent the past three years moving back and forth between Lake Tahoe, California, and Cerro Catedral in Bariloche. His years of endless winter have allowed him to experience life as a ski instructor in mountain towns of both hemispheres and pick up on some of the more subtle dissimilarities.

Lucas feels that to understand the differences, you need to understand how different Argentine culture is from both North American and European cultures. “Skiing here in Argentina is not a national sport, like football, that everyone can participate in,” says Lucas.

There are some local discounts and group classes offered near the end of the season in September, but between July and August Cerro Catedral gets almost exclusively well-to-do visitors from Buenos Aires, other large Argentine cities and, of course, foreigners. Meanwhile, even though season pass and lift ticket prices are comparable to many Northern hemisphere resort prices, you can’t expect the same amenities.

After a big storm, you might anticipate the best powder day of the year, but in Bariloche the resort often opens late due to poor road conditions and much of the mountain is unaccessible because avalanche danger. Lucas, who has taught skiing in both hemispheres, says that in terms of both technology and mountain management, Argentina lags behind North America and Europe.

At my local resort in Squaw Valley, California, line can form at the coveted KT-22 chair up to three hours before opening on a good powder day. Dedicated locals wait in the cold and the dark just to get in the first turns of the day. That may seem a little crazy, but these skiers (and snowboarders) also rely on the skill, training, and technology of the ski patrol who watch over the mountain and minimize avalanche danger with “avalanche bombs.” It might be frustrating for someone accustomed to high-tech skiing to wait hours, or even days, for an Argentine mountain to open after a storm, but safety, just like everywhere else in the world, is their top priority here at Cerro Catedral.

One way to avoid the hang-ups of Argentine ski resorts is to go backcountry skiing. Not only is this a more environmentally-appealing way to ski, but you get a better work out as well as the opportunity to enjoy the serenity of Bariloche’s beautiful National Park. So if you decide to come to Bariloche to ski this winter, and Cerro Catedral isn’t open to satisfy your powder needs, rent some snowshoes or some Randonee skies and head into the back-country.

You just may see me out there trying to save a buck and get in some turns while I wait for the mountain to be fully up and running.

Link: Cerro Catedral
Link: Winter 2009 Rates
Link: General Information on Ski Resorts In Chile & Argentina

INTERVIEW: Actress Elena Roger, Star Of Piaf

Elena Roger, Argentina’s Little Sparrow.

by Javier Arevalo-Rendall

The obvious difference between London and Buenos Aires is the language. The buildings are similar in style and they gaze down on you in similar ways.

The cool, trendy people that live in London’s Portobello are akin to those living in Palermo. There are moods, streets, times of the day that trick the mind and tempt you to say, “I’m in Buenos Aires now.”

Argentine actress Elena Roger, who recently returned to Argentina after living in London for three years, knows all about this. Already a successful actress, Roger moved to London in 2006 to star in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s play Evita. While there she fought hard to learn English and conquer the world of theatre. She recently received what most critics consider the English theatre establishment’s highest accolade: she won the Lawrence Olivier award for her starring role in Piaf in London’s West End.

Newspapers and magazines throughout Argentina told the story of how she got the award. They talked about how she was born in the Buenos Aires suburb of Barracas some thirty-odd years ago, and about how she has now returned to Buenos Aires, triumphant, to play the role of the great French singer Édith Piaf – otherwise known as the “Little Sparrow” – here on the legendary, theatre-lined calle Corrientes.

But the local papers said little about Roger’s struggle to adapt in a new country and master a new language. This is her story, as told in an interview before her trip back to Buenos Aires.

The Argentine Post: Tell us about your relationship with the English language. You arrived in London about three years ago and now you’ve mastered it. How were the first weeks in London?

Elena Roger: It was tough, it was a real fight. I don’t know, I guess I can’t really say I’ve mastered the language as such; I speak it… mas o menos. I still say “turn on” when I mean “turn down” and things of the sort. I started to learn English in Baires, in my teenage years. But around the time I was 18, I simply stopped going to the language school, and for more than ten years I didn’t use it on a day-to-day basis. And well, it disappeared. Apart from that, I had never used it at the level that I use it now; speaking it, listening to the language, polishing it in general was something that I needed desperately.

And so it was that la Roger arrived in London, knowing she would have to toughen up and take on English as it is spoken in the streets. In Argentina, when you first encounter the English language it’s typically in a classroom, and the teachers only have one accent, which is always comfortingly familiar. With a bit of luck, you might have the odd British, American or Australian teacher, but of course they’re mostly gauchos. You always rely on your Spanish to make yourself understood.

TAP: So how were your first months in London?

ER: Well, they were very challenging, but at the same time extremely gratifying. It was 2006 and I found myself on the other side of the world playing ‘Evita’ for the first time. I originally only came over for an interview with Andrew Lloyd-Webber, and realising that I’d been chosen for the main role was just mind-blowing. And then of course there’s the fact that the character I was playing had major significance for me as an Argentine. One grows up learning about Evita, so having the chance to portray her on a major stage was immensely gratifying. Also the audiences and the critics liked it, so all in all it was a very happy experience.

TAP: And today? What have you found challenging about living in London?

ER: Obviously the distance. Having friends and family so far can be difficult at times, but that’s something that happens to all of us, I guess. Now, on a more practical level, I would say that I’m still a bit overwhelmed by the huge variety of accents that you hear around you. Some are wonderfully crisp and clear, but others … mamma mia! There are days when I feel I speak no English at all!

In Argentina accents are never a problem, of course. Even though one is well aware of their existence (the way the cordobeses sing or the shos that constitute the essence of Buenos Aires speech) to the native-speaker’s ears, accents do nothing but embellish and give colour to the Spanish language.

Roger wasn’t daunted by the challenge, but in the heat of the battle, her mother tongue did suffer. In Spanish, Elena Roger doesn’t descansa, she takes breaks, in English.

Roger and I met for coffee in a place called “Canela,” Spanish for cinnamon. But when the cinnamon stick arrived, garnishing our cappuccinos, there was a certain air of confusion. I lifted it, waved it at Elena and asked her: “Don’t you feel like this is cinnamon and not canela? Don’t you feel like you’re losing your Spanish?”

ER: I am losing it indeed … and my English was never quite with me anyway. Sometimes I ask myself: ‘What language do I speak?’ I certainly speak English; I make myself understood, I understand them when they speak … but it isn’t mine. I want to explain something and I just don’t have the words. There are certain codes, unspoken rules that I ignore. If I wink at somebody in Argentina everything’s alright; I know they will understand what I mean. I might not have the words in Spanish, but there are a thousand other things I do have at my disposal to convey what I want to say! Now of course that very same wink may mean something very different over here.

TAP: And some other times there are words that you first encounter in English… and when you want to express the same thing in Spanish you’re in trouble…

ER: Of course! Sometimes you keep on repeating words with the hope of finding a translation and you don’t find anything… Once an interviewer here in London taught me the word “challenge.” So I very happily started to use it… even in Spanish. How on earth do you say “challenge” in Spanish? I didn’t have the foggiest! After a few weeks I called my mum, and after exchanging definitions and interpretations we agreed on “desafio.”

TAP: Would you say that playing Piaf was a ‘desafio’?

ER: God yes! A major one. It was absolutely wonderful, a beautifully strong play … but it was terribly demanding.

TAP: Why did you decide to do Piaf? What attracted you to the role?

ER: I think it was the fact that Edith Piaf was such a strong, passionate character …

TAP: Rather like Evita …

ER: Indeed, like Evita.

TAP: Do you identify with these women in any way?

ER: Well, I wouldn’t go as far as saying “identify”. They were both such strong, influential people that comparing myself with them wouldn’t seem fair. But there are some aspects of their personalities that I do share, certainly. They were passionate, independent women who got what they wanted as a result of talent and hard work, by not giving up. Now, something I found interesting –after I signed up- was the fact that Elaine Page had first played Evita here in London and then moved on to do Piaf.

TAP: And how did you prepare yourself to become the Little Sparrow?

ER: It was an arduous process. Hugely rewarding, but also very demanding. The play wasn’t entirely original; Pam Gem had written it and it opened here in London in 1978. But the creative team thought that the script needed some changes, and after it was decided that I would be the one playing Piaf, the director – Jamie Lloyd – met Pam Gem and re-wrote a huge chunk of it. The final version ended up being shorter, but there are certain things that we added to make the character rounder; the Résistance years weren’t in the original version, or example.

Then there was the language! I spoke no French at all, so first I went to Paris for a few weeks to immerse myself in the language and then, back in London, I had a wonderful private teacher who helped me with the pronunciation, the intonation, etc. The whole thing had to be done very well and very carefully because I didn’t just have to speak in French – most of the speaking is in English – but I had to sing in it! I also did the usual work that you do when you play somebody else: you study the subject and try to understand it. If you want to portray a person accurately, you have to understand them first! And finally there was quite a bit of physical training. The play is not long, but it’s very intense and you have to be fit enough to be able to do it six times a week.

TAP: Well, judging from the response that the production got, I think it’d be fair to say that you pulled it off.

ER: [laughs] Yes! I never thought I wouldn’t be able to do it, but the response that we got from the people and the critics was just wonderful. There were loads of French people who approached me and said to me: “It was magnificent, it felt like listening to Edith again….” That’s the best thing anyone could possibly say to you!

Despite claims to the contrary, Elena Roger never uttered the sentence “I’m a petit woman, but I’ve got a great voice.” And no, she doesn’t think the phrase would look great as a title of an autobiography or a new musical.

ER: Oh, someone else must have said that! These are things that other people have told me. Many times people have said “How can it be possible that such a great voice fits into such a small body?” But it has never been more than that.

TAP: Tell me about London. What emotions does it stir in you?

ER: “Well, I love its buzz, the fact that it’s so utterly vibrant. There’s art on every corner, and since there’s more money going round the artistic productions are rather fancier. There’s one thing that I’m particularly enjoying at the moment, and it’s the sense of discovery and fulfilment that the English language is giving me. I go to the theatre, and not only do I understand the content, but I see how the actors savour the words, enjoy them. British English always sounded more appealing to me, and it’s a real pleasure to enjoy it the way I do now.

TAP: And if you had to choose a European city to settle down, which one would you choose?

ER: London … or Madrid.

TAP: And in the world?

ER: In my mind there’s always the idea of settling down in Baires, either in the city itself or in the suburbs. I love travelling, but home is home. Anyway, being here for three years opened up my mind. Before, the idea of living abroad just didn’t interest me. I always thought ‘As long as I can live here in my city, I’ll stay.’ But now that life has torn me out of Baires and brought me here, I think ‘Hey, it’s not so bad to live abroad.’ I don’t feel like I’m from here nor there, but being a citizen of the world is not a bad thing, after all…

TAP: And sometimes it happens that one idealises, doesn’t it? We’re here, surrounded by the cold and the rain and we dream of the sun, the friends, the asados… But when we step off the plane in Ezeiza and the bubble bursts we start yearning for the tea, the pristine parks, the sense of order and respect for each other’s space.

ER: Yeah, you feel weird here, weird over there… there are things that you never really agree on. I always say: ‘I don’t live in London, I work in London’ It would be extremely difficult to live here without a job. If I had to live like that, I’d rather go back home and live with my family in Baires. I know that I would at least have my loved ones around me. That’s what I look for in life, at least on a personal level.

After the last drops of coffee, after the bill, the greetings and promises for future cups and glasses, Elena left. Wrapped in a trendy dress and carrying a bag that wasn’t old but vintage, she got lost in the crowd. She looked very trendy, very cool. Very Palermo and very Portobello, she started to become a part, once again, of the multi-coloured jigsaw puzzle that is London.

And now, after having conquered London, she’s returned home. Piaf opens July 15 in Buenos Aires.

*Born in Argentina, Javier Arevalo-Rendall is a freelance writer living in London. He writes for the newspaper Critica de la Argentina, as well as for the literary magazines Miranda, Sismotrapisonda, and La Otra, among others. He is currently working on his first short story collection. www.javoarevalo.wordpress.com

From El Bulli To BA: Argentine Chef Brings Vanguard Cuisine to Argentina

By Fiorella Donayre

Dante Liporace, the executive chef at the new Moreno restaurant, offers a menu that puts twists on traditional flavors to tap your taste memory with techniques that both surprise and satisfy.

“The idea is to look for flavors that you know, that you have in your mind, stuck to your memory, and to find this flavor that you know with a different texture, with a different temperature, but that in your mouth has the same flavor,” Liporace, 31, told The Argentine Post in an interview at the restaurant.

In his executive chef debut, Liporace, who worked at El Bulli, among other Spanish Michellin-starred restaurants including Akelarre and Tragabuches, doesn’t seek extravagant flavors. Instead he says his aim is to serve Argentine diners bife de chorizo or risotto in ways they can enjoy as never before through the use of “perfect flavors.”

Moreno joins a small field of restaurants including La Vineria de Gualterio Bolivar that have brought vanguard cuisine, also known as experimental cooking, or techno-emotional cuisine to Buenos Aires. The style emerged in 1990, led by El Bulli owner and chef Ferran Adria, as a search for new culinary concepts and techniques which began as an empiric exercise that employed foams made with siphons and savory ice creams made with liquid nitrogen. In his search of constant innovation, Adria later explored other fields, including “molecular gastronomy,” a scientific approach to cooking, and using the new technology to improve his cooking techniques. (Adria’s manifesto is here)

Deconstructed Spanish Tortilla

Moreno Restaurante is located on Moreno St. on the edge of Montserrat and San Telmo, a few blocks from the Plaza de Mayo. The restaurant has a main dining room next to the bar and a VIP area, with seating for 80 and a wine cellar with a capacity for 1000 bottles that includes classic and boutique wines, says sommelier Maria de la Paz Nasta.

Moreno offers three-course daily lunch specials (50 pesos) as well as tasting menus of seven (220 pesos per person) and 10 courses (330 pesos per person), with a la carte options also available.

The menu includes a “deconstructed Spanish tortilla” served in a glass. It starts with a layer of onions cooked slowly for four hours under a layer of scrambled eggs topped with a layer of mashed potato foam that’s sprinkled with French fries to provide a juxtaposition of potato textures, Liporace says.

Another dish that stands out is the suckling pig served with a wild berry risotto and “ossobuco sauce.” The meat is vacuum sealed in a heat-proof plastic bag and vapor cooked in a special oven for 17 hours at precisely 72 degrees Celsius. The temperature is then quickly lowered to 3 degrees Celsius. On order, the dish is reheated to 72 degrees Celsius in 10 minutes and served.

The lack of oxygen helps intensify the flavors so it’s not necessary to marinate the product for hours. The pork only needs a few drops of olive oil and some herbs to obtain an intense flavor. This method gives the cut of meat a crunchy exterior and a tender interior that bursts with flavor.

The same technique is used in other dishes like the lamb with “locro sauce” and “humita” foam or the salmon with scallops, pistachios and a potato-leak sauce.

The level of efficiency achieved with this cooking technique is one of the characteristics of the vanguard cuisine, Liporace notes. It’s a way to reach an “extreme flavor” that surprises and stimulates the senses of the costumers who often find themselves compelled to discuss the food and the menu with the chef, at times making their own suggestions.

“This is a different experience. You don’t come here to exactly fill yourself up, but to look for different flavors and textures”, Liporace said.

Bife de Chorizo Cocido al Vacio

The new technology is also used to make desserts, such as making ice cream in minutes with a special Italian machine — or even in seconds using liquid nitrogen. Among interesting dessert options are the moist chocolate biscuit that comes with a flan ice cream and dulce de leche sauce, or the chocolate hazelnut biscuit with coffee ice cream and vodka granite.

But not everything in this style of cooking is about new technology. Vanguard cuisine also broke down the walls between the worlds of sweet and savory. An example of this is Liporace’s foie gras with raspberry jelly, parmesan cheese foam and an olive sweet, or the Northern bluefin tuna tartar accompanied by eucalyptus sorbet and miso.

The Bar at Moreno Restaurante led by Juan Pablo Acosta also offers interesting cocktails like the “22 creations” made with vodka macerated with ginger, sake, pink grapefruit juice and ginger syrup. The “Troopez” that mixes up gin, mint ,key lime, sugar and orange juice, and the “Lichee Martini”, a blend of vodka, sake, lichee juice and lichee syrup. Microbrewed beers are also provided by Gambrinus brewery.

MORENO RESTAURANTE
Moreno 372
Information and reservations: 54 11 5291 2830 (or 8890 or 5593)
www.morenorestaurante.com

*Fiorella Donayre is a Peruvian lawyer who moved to Buenos Aires in 2004. She completed the professional chef’s program at Mausi Sebess in 2006 and has worked as a pasante at the Caesar Park Hotel’s Agraz restaurante in recoleta and at El Senorio de Sulco in Lima. She can be reached at: fiorella@argentinepost.com

INTERVIEW: Gaston Acurio Exports Peruvian Culture Through Its Cuisine

(Click here for more on Acurio’s new place and a full review of Peruvian restaurants in Buenos Aires.)

By Fiorella Donayre 

Gaston Acurio seeks to create a new image for Peru on the world stage and he’s convinced that globalizing Peruvian cuisine is one of the best ways to do that. He and a new generation of Peruvian chefs are dedicated to the task. 

The Argentine Post interviewed Acurio by telephone from Lima last month. Here’s an excerpt of the conversation.  


TAP: Having successfully opened various Astrid & Gaston restaurants in Latin America and beyond, how do you maintain the level of quality that you offer. Are you worried about overextending yourself? 
 


GA: Of course I have this concern, but my biggest worry would be to stop a process that the chefs of my generation consider to be a task that we’ve been given – to globalize Peruvian food as a way to build a new image of our country in the world. We are trying to export our culture. There is a need to promote a new value for what Peru produces and to improve Peru’s standing in the world. Food can serve as instrument to that end and that’s our mission and our responsibility as chefs. 

There are some risks that you can’t control quality. What we try to do is build a simple philosophy based on principles such as the absolute respect for fresh ingredients, for the customer. We try to form a family within each restaurant based on these principles, to always focus on the result of the plate that ends up on the table and not about the restaurant’s bank account.  

In Buenos Aires, Roberto Grau is the protagonist, the artist, the one called upon to run the restaurant successfully. What I do is inspire, motivate, give some solutions to the problems he may have, to advise him, but in each country there is a Roberto Grau who has the same mission that I had in the beginning. So, to some extent we are a small army of cooks who are very united and compromised with an objective that goes beyond mere cooking.  

TAP: Do you think the rising interest in Peruvian restaurants outside of Peru will lead people to want to cook Peruvian food in their homes? If so, do you think there are investors interested in supplying grocery store demand? 

GA: The other day I had lunch with the general manager for Grupo Cencosud, one of the largest supermarket chains in Latin America, and he told me that beginning this year they will put a “Peruvian Corner” – and entire aisle full of the ingredients necessary to make Peruvian food – in their supermarkets in Argentina, Chile and Brazil because the demand is growing. This is the culmination of what we are trying to do; if we can put Peruvian food in the spotlight, let people discover it in Peruvian restaurants, make it at home with Peruvian cookbooks, we are opening the possibility for these products to enter the markets and supermarkets.  

If we look at the global cuisines of today – Japanese, Italian, French – the most recent to emerge is Japanese cuisine. Thirty years ago if someone were to tell you to go eat raw fish, algea or wasabi, you probably would have hated it for the rest of your life because mentally it was a disagreeable experience for most people. Thirty years later, Japanese food is one of the most fashionable cuisines in the world and there isn’t a major city that doesn’t have Japanese restaurants. There must be hundreds of Japanese restaurants in Buenos Aires, you can find Japanese products in supermarkets, and the bars – even the ones that aren’t Japanese – stock sake on the shelves. We Peruvians are just beginning this process. With our repertoire of ceviches, tiraditos, causas, anticuchos, rices, and stir fries, there is no reason why Peruvian food shouldn’t be where Japanese food is today within 30 years. It’s all up to my generation of Peruvian chefs to do things correctly. 

TAP: You mentioned the plan to spread Peruvian food awareness across Latin America through supermarkets. What about the United States? 

GA: That’s the biggest market, the main objective. We just opened a restaurant in San Francisco in the best part of the city. I put my cevicheria right next to the best French restaurant, the most successful restaurant in the city. I raised my flag in the most emblematic part of San Francisco with the goal of starting out on top in the minds of American consumers. San Francisco is known across the United States for its sophisticated food scene and good living. That makes it the best doorway into the rest of America.

*Fiorella Donayre is a Peruvian lawyer who moved to Buenos Aires in 2004. She completed the professional chef’s program at Mausi Sebess in 2006 and has worked as a pasante at the Caesar Park Hotel’s Agraz restaurante in recoleta and at El Senorio de Sulco in Lima.

Peru Food Guru To Open Astrid & Gaston In BA

Ceviche – Courtesy of Sipan

By Fiorella Donayre

Peruvian food visionary and leading Latin American chef Gaston Acurio will open his flagship restaurant Astrid & Gaston in Buenos Aires on March 6, joining a growing pool of top chefs bringing a slice of the foodie heaven that is Lima to the Argentine capital.

Charismatic and pasionate, Gaston Acurio has a clear objective for his restaurant in Buenos Aires and his role in a process that goes beyond mere cooking.

“Our job is to bring Peruvian food to the most important cities in the world; it’s a way to promote our culture, what Peruvians know how to do best,” Acurio told The Argentine Post by telephone from Lima. 

(Click here to see the full interview)

Peruvian cuisine is a mixture of cultures, much like Peru itself, with influences from Japan, China, Spain, as well as the Arab world and Africa. For Acurio this process is still evolving, that’s why the menu at Astrid & Gaston is a mix of tradition and fusion. “We continue to explore new ideas, new flavors that can help to enrich Peruvian food,” he said.

In this search, Acurio and his team traveled throughout Argentina, convinced that all good food must use quality fresh local produce, in this case Argentine meats from the Pampas and Patagonia, Andean vegetables from the northwest and seafood from the south.

With this local produce, his recipes and Peruvian “aji amarillo” – the yellow hot chili pepper is the only ingredient Acurio believes must be imported from his home country – the chef has devised the menu for Buenos Aires. It’s a formula that’s met with success in Bogota, Caracas, Madrid, Mexico City, Santiago and Quito.

Lomo Saltado Nikkei – Courtesy of Sipan

The Argentine Post visited Astrid & Gaston Buenos Aires a few weeks before its opening to get acquainted with the space and the menu.

Outside the large wooden door of the “casona señorial” on a silent street in Palermo Chico, there’s no indication of the intense activity going on inside.

The first thing TAP notices upon entering is the frenzy of the kitchen, where a group of cooks led by Peruvian chef Roberto Grau works nonstop. We pass by the golden cornucopia, a symbol of abundance from the Peruvian flag, into the lounge where the barman Raúl Rosas demonstrates his pisco concoctions for the new staff.

Here we find Hector Teran, general manager, and begin our tour of the restaurant’s eight-and-a-half-meter high wine cellar with capacity for 3,000 bottles, an open-air patio, and three dining rooms with seating for 80, up to 110 if you include the lounge and bar.

Local produce arrives at the restaurant from all corners of the country, with the lamb from Coronel Suarez in southwestern Buenos Aires province. The corvina (sea bass), pargo (sea bream) and besugo (red sea bream) arrive daily from Mar del Plata.

Cold appetizers, such as ceviche and causa have always been the biggest hits at Astrid & Gaston restaurants, Grau says. That’s why they have to take special care in selecting the seafood they use.

The centolla (spider crab) and langostinos (prawns) are used in a Peruvian causa as the filling for cold boiled potatoes that are finely mashed with aji amarillo, oil, and key lime juice.

Ceviche mixto brings together fresh fish, octopus, chipirones (baby squid), and prawns accompanied with julliened red onions, canchita (“unpopped” roasted dried corn), slices of sweet potato, macerated with key lime juice and peruvian chilis.

The braised pork with carapulcra is another plate of note. A dish that pre-dates the Inca Empire, carapulcra is made with “papa seca,” potatoes that have been precooked, chopped, and sun dried. Presoaked, the papa seca is cooked for hours into a rich stew that normally includes aji panca, cloves, port, and crushed peanuts.  

Grau highlights other items on the new menu, such as the braised garron de cordero (lamb shank) that comes with a “seco” sauce tipical to northern Peru made with aji amarillo, cumin, cilantro and chicha de jora, an Andean alcoholic beverage made with fermented corn that dates back to the Inca Empire.

There’s also an ossobuco veal shank that comes with a sauce inspired by pachamanca, a precolombian meal normally cooked in layers of meats, vegetables and herbs all buried underground with heated rocks.

Astrid & Gaston is one of several venues developed by Acurio. He’s opened his upscale cevicheria La Mar in Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile and, most recently, in San Francisco, where they serve some 400 people daily and  5,000 pisco sours and 10,000 other pisco cocktails a month.  Plans are in the works to open a La Mar in Sao Paulo.

Acurio is preparing to open a branch of “T’anta,” a hip deli that focuses on Peruvian comfort food classics in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, while he is still refining his take on Peruvian fast food at his growing Lima-based chain “Pasquale Hermanos.”

In many countries, Acurio has been the first to open a Peruvian restaurant. But that’s not the case in Buenos Aires, where Astrid & Gaston is just the latest local opening by chefs well known in Lima.

Tiradito Dos Olivos – Courtesy of Osaka

“Osaka,” led by Daniel Delgado, debuted in Palermo Hollywood in July 2006 with a focus on Peruvian-Japanese fusion with additional influences from Chinese and Thai cuisine.

Osaka head chef Luis Francisco Adrianzen, who’s worked in kitchens in Peru, Australia, Malasia, Ireland, and Ecuador says one of his most popular dishes is “terimaki” rolls made with prawns, Philadelphia cream cheese, cubes of salmon, julliened lime and teryaki sauce.

Another hit is the Peruvian classic “tiradito,” a cold dish made with thin slices of raw fish marinated in lime juice and served with a creamy hot pepper sauce. His “Vietnamese tiradito” mixes it up with lemon grass and fish sauce.

Lima standard “Francesco,” with two restaurants in Peru and one in Miami, opened its doors in Palermo Nuevo in mid-December.

Led by Raul Hanza, Franceso specializes in fish and seafood dishes, including a “tiradito Franceso” and “lenguado Franceso,” a charcoal grilled filet of sole served with a walnut, shrimp and calamari sauce, and a side of grilled asparagus.

Peruvian celebrity chef Rafael Osterling also has his sites set on Buenos Aires, with plans to open a local branch of his eponymous restaurant “Rafael,” according to his website, although the details remain to be hashed out.

Other Peruvian chefs have made names for themselves with eateries unique to Buenos Aires.

Jose Castro-Mendivil, former partner and founder of Osaka, opened Sipan early last year on the first floor of an office galery at the corner of Paraguay and Florida in the microcentro. There the fusion has shifted from sushi back to Peruvian classics – “comida criolla,” ceviches, sino-peruvian Nikkei cuisine, and “chifa,” the Cantonese-Peruvian mainstay that’s been popular since a wave of Chinese laborers landed in Lima a century ago.

A popular spot for business lunches, the restaurant takes on a serene air at night, with tables filled with a mix of locals and foreigners. The portions are generous, so sharing courses is recommended. Among standout first courses are the “conchitas a la parmesana,” oven roasted scallops on the half shell marinated with key lime juice, white wine and a touch of Worchester sauce topped with parmesan cheese au gratin.

Conchitas a la Parmesana – Courtesty of Sipan

Another hit is the “tacu tacu,” a mix of beans and rice shaped into a small flat loaf and lightly fried and served with a variety of stews or, most classically, with a cut of lomo steak, a fried egg, and a side of “salsa criolla” — juliened raw red onions and hot peppers in lime juice.

On the fusion front, Mendivil devised “lomo saltado nikkei” a sizzling plate that adds teriyaki sauce and grilled calamari to lomo saltado, an old-standbye stir fry of sirloin strips, red onion, aji amarillo and tomatoes served with french fries and rice. Don’t miss it.

The best bang for your buck may well be Palermo Soho’s Zadvarie Doc, where owner Neco Kvasina adeptly fuses Peruvian cooking with fresh Argentine produce.

With seating for just 32, the kitchen staff consistently delivers well executed dishes, such as the pechuguitas de pollo marinadas in aji mirasol, huacatay y cerveza (chicken breasts marinated in mirasol chili peppers, Andean black mint, and ale), which put a fresh twist on ingredients common to Peru.

Three types of ceviche showcase constistently fresh fish, while the classic take on lomo saltado is always on the mark. The lunchtime specials remain a sweet deal.

Palermo Chico’s Libelula is another hit with sushi and seafood lovers. Amidst a move from their original spot on Lafinur – a few meters from Astrid & Gaston – the owners are keeping their new proposal -  in another lovely “casona senorial” at Salguero 2983 near Avenida Libertador  – shrouded in mystery.

At Palermo Hollywood’s Ceviche, the menu has shifted more toward Japanese fusion under the tutelage of Roberto Nishida. Try his “ceviche nikkei,” made with cubes of raw salmon seasoned with lime juice, soy sauce and a touch of wasabi, oil and sesame. Nishida’s “maremoto” (seaquake) is made with scallops and salmon pan seared with aji mirasol, “flambeado” with sake, topped with a maracuya (passion fruit) syrup and served with a sushi roll, teryaki sauce and a touch of togarashi.

At “Mosoq,” also in Palermo Hollywood, Nicolas Vainberg focuses on “novandino” dishes that incorporate exotic Andean grains such as quinoa and kiwicha.

Peru’s national liquor, pisco, also plays a prominent role at several restaurants including Sipan, and Bardot Loisir.

Sipan’s Castro-Mendivil, a pisco pioneer in the city to make virtually all of his drinks with Peru’s fragrant grape brandy, plans to expand his bar in a new lower-level lounge in May.

In Palermo Soho, Lima native Paul Cruzatt heads the bar at Bardot Loisir, which shifted to a Peruvian menu six months ago when Marco Espinoza, a former chef for the Peruvian ambassador, took over the kitchen after leaving Moche, which has since closed. 

Cruzatt’s offerings include more than a dozen “macerados,” piscos infused with herbs, spices and fruits such as coca leaves, ginger, cinnamon and aji panca. He also deploys a variety of simple syrups to put numerous twists on that classic Peruvian cocktail, the Pisco Sour.

After the apertif, try Espinoza’s take on “mero (grouper) a lo macho,” which he makes with a creamy curry hot sauce, fresh cilantro, chicha de jora and serves alongside “arroz morada,” a purple rice made with chicha morada, a non-fermented maiz drink popular in Peru.

Off the fusion trail, Buenos Aires has a variety of no-frills restaurants that serve up homestyle Peruvian classics. Among these, don’t miss “Status” in Congreso, “Contigo Peru” and “Primavera Trujillana”,  both in Belgrano.

 

*Fiorella Donayre is a Peruvian lawyer who moved to Buenos Aires in 2004. She completed the professional chef’s program at Mausi Sebess in 2006 and has worked as a pasante at the Caesar Park Hotel’s Agraz restaurante in recoleta and at El Senorio de Sulco in Lima.

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