Walking along the street of this porteño neighbourhood, the architecture is stunning, but the façades have seen better days. I am not in the restaurant reviewer’s regular part of town.

Aramburu defies every syllable of the ‘location, location, location’ concept. Whilst Guía Oleo places the restaurant in much more marketable San Telmo, the Guía-T accurately places it in the much less appealing Constitución. And it does seem like an extraordinary choice for such an up-market and well-received restaurant, but it is a choice chef Gonzalo Aramburu defends. He is from the area and lives just a few blocks away. And besides, the election doesn’t seem to have done them badly – the restaurant has been open for over five years, and they are expanding to open a bistro half a block away before the year ends. And on the Wednesday we go, all 20 seats are full.

Upon entering, you are suddenly whisked out of the south of the city and into somewhere much more cosmopolitan. The bare-brick walls open out to the modern, stainless steel kitchen, which is entirely on view from behind an enormous pane of glass – a good choice, given the size of the dining area and the noise levels that would likely come from the kitchen were it actually open.

The decor is simple, yet sleek. The tables have a very considered lighting effect, with spotlights illuminating the centre, but keeping diners mostly in the dark – a flattering combination. And after all, it is the food that is protagonist at Aramburu.

There is no menu: Aramburu offers a ten-course dining experience, which is entirely a surprise. Diners are asked by the bilingual staff if they have any particular dietary requirements or preferences, and the rest is left in the hands of Aramburu himself.

The menu is designed in four stages – entrees, followed by seafood, then meat mains, and finally desserts; and within each stage are two or three dishes. The variety in the steps is overwhelming with hints of the chef’s time spent working in Europe and the United States. Each and every plate is a carefully considered creation, mixing flavours and tones as diverse as the cauliflower and truffle soup, a version of a tamale topped with a corn foam, or a green salad on an avocado base with cucumber and apple dressing.

There is definitely something of a crescendo in the courses, and the two meat dishes were indeed the highlight. Suckling pig, after eight hours of cooking, simply melted in the mouth, and came accompanied with almonds and butternut squash. Next up was filet mignon served with four textures of potatoes, each one served differently, in praise of the Andean staple.

And between the mains and the desserts, we were in for a surprise. A stone pot filled with moss sprinkled in apple oil was left on the table, and moments later a waitress appeared with a steaming jug of dry ice and proceeded to pour it over the pot. Visually, the effect was stunning, and the fumes we inhaled proceeded to cleanse our palate, readying us for the final stage of the dinner: dessert.

Whilst there is little freedom of choice on the menu itself, the wine is the complete opposite. The selection is extensive, with wines from the heights of Salta to the reaches of Patagonia, and includes organic and biodynamic wines, as well as less common varietals such as Riesling. Sommelier Agustina de Alba, who put the menu together, confirms our surprise at an Argentine Riesling, explaining only 83 hectares of the grape are planted in the entire country.

The international selection is equally broad and goes beyond the predictable European and new world labels, with even Hungarian wine featuring.

And the option of a five-glass wine flight allows diners to enjoy wines that they might not otherwise venture to choose. Like the food menu, the wines are also a surprise.

We were served five glasses of extraordinary wine, with neither Malbec nor Torrontes featuring, to my delight. A Riesling from Humberto Canale, Patagonia’s oldest vineyard, and an excellent 2010 Colomé Bonarda really stood out. The servings were generous, and I would recommend the tasting menu – it really is worth every centavo of its $220 price tag.

It would seem that there is nothing predictable about Aramburu, which seems destined to keep surprising and defying the odds of its somewhat strange location.

Kate Beioley heads behind the scenes at famous chain Casa de la Nonna to find out how to make the traditional Argentine food of empanadas in Buenos Aires…

Camera: Melissa Macaya
Editing: Melissa Macaya, Luis Lopez

On 21st June, Guia Oleo and Buenos Aires Delivery brought together the top restaurants in the city, offering guests a culinary world tour that spanned from Indian samosas to Japanese Sushi to Southern US barbequed chicken wings.

“We put together a list of our top 50 restaurants, who we knew we’d love to have, and just went from there,” said co-founder of Buenos Aires Delivery, Cori Allen.

In total 26 restaurants came together to feed the expected 2,000 at the event called Taste!

“We had one last October and we had 700 people show up,” says Allen. “We realised how much people love free food.”

Three long isles packed full of sushi boats, sizzling stews, and cup cake liners filled with the perfect bite-sized samples awaited guests as they packed in to the tiny banquet hall.

There was moist organic zucchini bread, Venezuelan corn bread smothered in cheese, deep dish pizza, New Orleans red bean Creole stew, draft beer, spicy hot sauces, fried pita chips with the most delicious red pepper spread, Mexican style tacos, rows upon rows of sushi, five different kinds of chicken wings, flaky samosas and all vegan burgers, and that was all before the dessert isle.

Fresh-baked blueberry pies with whipped cream, all-natural vanilla frozen yogurt with fresh strawberries and a velvet smooth chocolate mousse topped off the perfect buffet.

“The food was fantastic,” said fellow food taster Orla Treacy. There was no doubt that was the general consensus as people lined up pushing and shoving to get to the front of the vendors’ tables.

The event was organised so that each person was given a booklet upon entering the banquet hall. Whenever they sampled food from a vendor they had to put a ticket into the box at that table. When you were out of tickets, it was time to leave. However, with all the food and drink swirling around no one wanted to leave.

One of the organising tables collapsed under the weight of the throngs of people at the door and the few garbage’s that were present were filling up faster than they were being emptied leaving some spilling onto the floor.

But to the vendors the massive herds were much more of a benefit than a nuisance.

“One of the main reasons for coming here was to get my name out there to people who are interested in food,” said 28-year-old independent pastry chef Kelly Poindexter.

The event gave all the chefs and restaurant owners an excellent chance to showcase their food and get their name out into the public.

Overall Taste! was an absolutely delicious evening but with its current success rate it’s probably time for a bigger venue.

Saturday 9th June saw the very first edition of the Buenos Aires Underground Market produced by The Argentina Independent. Based on the successful model started in San Francisco, food vendors came together to sell their wares at the IMPA worker-run factory in Almagro. With more than 700 visitors and a over 15 vendors the afternoon was packed with yummy goodness. See below for a full vendor list. Here is a selection of photos by Cómo/Como.

 

When a person moves to a new country, it’s usually hard to find the ingredients that make up the flavours of home.

Certainly, the food in Argentina is not known for its intricate flavour infusions or delicate spicing. The country’s national dish is grilled meat, and most Argentines will balk at the mention of anything hot or picante.

As such, every local grocer carries the Argentine basics – things like oregano, basil, parsley, provenzal, ”rice seasoning”, salt, chimichurri and pepper can be picked up anywhere. But if you’re looking for something outside of the culinary canon, you’ll probably have to take a few steps further than the local Chinese supermarket.

That said, Argentina’s varied immigrant influences give it a leg-up on other Latin American countries with regards to cuisine. Arab and East-Asian influences can be seen throughout Buenos Aires, especially with regards to the access of foreign ingredients.

Spice shops are littered through the city and, while they too focus on local delights, these stores almost always provide other options. Curry powder is stored on the shelves next to cumin. The scent of a cinnamon peeler’s wife would go unnoticed amongst the thick sticks, which often lurk near the jars of anis and crushed cloves.

This week, the Argentina Independent took a peek inside some of Buenos Aires’ many spice shops and picked a Top 5 to fit your dishes and budgets.

Asia Oriental Shopping

From Japanese miso to Taiwanese snow fungus, this shop carries a wide variety of products that are integral to the continent’s flavours and is sure to satisfy most of your Asian spicing needs.

The noisy store is usually filled to the brim with customers, banging baskets through the thin aisles and shouting in Mandarin and other East Asian languages.

Herbs and spices are at the back of the store, near the refrigerated goods and well within a nose’s reach of the fresh fish and meat sections.

Their spice selection is large and cheap. You can buy a 600g box of curry powder for $80 or 100g of dried kelp for $100. Dried honeysuckle and rosebuds are available, as are dried shitake mushrooms and gastrodia.

Want to make your congee extra special? Gordon euryale seeds can be found here. Not sure where to get the lovely liquorice flavour for your after-curry palate cleanser? Fennel seeds come sold in a Ziploc-style bag.

The store also has an excellent selection of fresh herbs. If you are lucky, there may even be some Thai basil or culantro waiting for you between the chives and coriander.

One of the store’s only letdowns is its popularity. So if you failed to plan your purchases in time for your Saturday sushi party, patience will have to be your virtue. On weekends, you will probably spend more time in the checkout than searching for the seaweed.

While the prices are low per pound, another problem is the large quantities. For instance, unless you plan on feeding an army of strongly-tongued 14-year-old boys, you probably won’t need half a kilo of dried, crushed chilies, but smaller quantities can be found at the Casa China Supermercado, located only a block away on Arribeños 2257.

All told, Asia Oriental Shopping’s low prices, wide variety and good quality make this store a fantastic place to stock up a spice rack with wonderfully strange ingredients, making it our favourite on the list.

Asia Oriental Shopping, Mendoza 1661.

Liniers Market

If you’re looking for the spices of South America, the Liniers market is the place to go.

Every day of the week, Buenos Aires’ European roots are cast aside on José León Suárez, making room for the people and flavours of Bolivia and Peru.

It is impossible to pick one store out of these haphazard two blocks, especially considering that some “stores” consist of people sitting on the street with their spicy wares. As such, we’re listing the whole market itself as the place to go.

The market hosts a full entourage of ingredients. There are many varieties of aji, like de color, panca and mirasol. Maíz, or corn,  is available in a rainbow of colours. You can also pick up a variety of cooking and baking ingredients, like Paraguayan flour and manioc starch.

Fresh herbs, common in Bolivian and Peruvian cooking, are available from established stores, as well as simpler one-item vendors.

As an added bonus, the prices are low, as is to be expected in a market atmosphere like this one.

While you’re shopping for ingredients, you can tame your salivating tongue with salteñas and Peruvian fried chicken with cassava.

The Bolivian-Peruvian Market is located on José León Suárez between Ramón Falcón and Ibarrola, in Liniers.

El Gato Negro

A deep herbal aroma hits you when entering El Gato Negro. It’s the allure of cumin, with a hint of cardamom and aftertaste allspice – the kind of scent that fades in the nostrils after standing around for a few minutes.

Your eyes are in for a treat, too, as the shelves are lined with colourful bottles housing teas, herbs, spices, powders and dried fruits. Deep red sumak is on the same shelf as the baking powder. There are five different curry spice mixes – madrasi, mild, hot, punjabi and assam – ranging from a turmeric-laden canary yellow to a faded brown, the shade of coriander.

A row of dark tea leaves garnishes the cash register, featuring such mixes as vanilla and chamomile, rosehip and hibiscus, and green tea with orange and ginger.

What puts this place so high on our list is its sheer selection, quality and the fact that its goods are sold in bulk. Each spice is sold by weight, each bag measured by a careful hand at the scale. The old architecture and clean style makes you feel more like you’re visiting an apothecary than picking up dinner fixings.

What keeps this place from reaching number one, however, is the price. Prices are not listed on the jars, so customers have to ask – and they’re much higher than other places on this list.

In addition to being a spice shop, El Gato Negro is also a popular café that serves tasty sweets and fresh coffee. It’s one of the only places in the city where you can enjoy a scone with a cafe con cardamomo.

El Gato Negro, Av. Corrientes 1669.

Dietetica Once

This little corner shop is unassuming in nature. It sits on a shady corner, the kind of place tourists should avoid when walking alone at night. During the day, however, the lights are bright and the store is delightful.

A collection of chimes and bells hanging on the door are constantly tinkling as customer after customer walks in. The queue snakes around bean sacks and mismatched shelves.

In addition to selling spices, this store also keeps people stocked up with its selection of herbal health medicines and baked goods. Large buckets of honey sit waiting to be bought, while sandwiches and salads sit in the fridge. Items ranging from granola to soap are shoved into almost ever nook and cranny.

Spices are spread throughout the store, found in jars of different shapes, sizes and colours along the walls. Rosemary. Sage. Vanilla. Seeds of all sorts. Fenugreek. Paprika. The prices are right, too. Chimichurri, for instance, costs $3.50 per 100 grams.

As wonderful as this place is, the size of its spice selection holds it back. Also, depending on the day, they have been sold out of seemingly-basic staples in the past (like curry powder). The staff can also be a bit supercilious at times.

All-in-all, this is a great general shop to set up a kitchen with its basic herb and spice needs.

Dietetica Once, Valentín Gómez 2902.

La Simbólica

La Simbólica has been a “symbol” of San Telmo for years. The last in a chain of franchise that have gradually been sold off, Aido Lela runs the place with her son Salvador Graciano and grandson Sebastian Graciano.

This family-run operation welcomes its customers not only with friendly service – which is a refreshing change – but also with the scent of dried fruits. Pomelo, apple, mango, papaya, kiwi and banana and health medicines join the spices on the shelves.

The store carry all the basics, and a little more. There’s ground turmeric as well as whole turmeric. Oregano and basil. Several types of sesame seed, different mustard powders and cumin.

In addition to their spicy selection, they also sell teas and herbal remedies for whatever ails you. They have a behind-the-counter shelf with olive oils, jellies and wines as well – incase you need more than just spice with your meal.

While prices are reasonable, they are still a little higher than the others in our selection. Chimichurri is priced at $5 per 100 grams for example, which might have something to do with the store’s San Telmo location.

La Simbólica, Carlos Calvo 708.

KitchenParty is a concept realised by a group of close friends living in Rome in 2011, and revolves around the idea of connecting people worldwide through shared dining experiences.

Aimed at anyone who enjoys sharing food with others, whether local, expat or traveller, the event makes for an evening that is inevitably diverse in terms of both people and activity.

Co-creator and Buenos Aires host, Michael Kaethler, explains that the idea was very much born out of a love of food, but also a love of its ability to bring people together and create communities.

The platform itself is a social networking site of sorts. Members create a profile and can then request friends, advertise their own events, or ask to attend someone else’s. But where other social networking sites fall down, KitchenParty excels by encouraging the creation of a real community, and not one that just exists online.

A non-profit organisation, KitchenParty asks no membership fee, with any participation costs dictated by an event’s host.

Getting started with KitchenParty party is very simple. Make an account for free on the website, filling in as much information as you feel comfortable with and from there you can search upcoming events by city. Ask to participate in the ones that catch your eye, and then just sit back to await confirmation from the host, which comes in the form of an automatic email.

Hosting is equally simple. First you enter the event’s information, made up of a name, theme, time and place, number of participants and participation fee (e.g. a bottle of wine). From there it is a case of accepting or declining participation requests and, as long as your minimum number is reached, the event goes ahead. Reassuringly, as host you have total control over who attends, with a peer review system allowing for greater security.

Some of the best things about KitchenParty are its versatility and lack of boundaries. With the website and the creators only there to facilitate a gathering, you can expect your event to be limited only by your own imagination. This leaves huge scope for members to experiment, and the opportunity to never eat the same meal twice.

The event visited last week was a gathering of around ten people at the home of our host, Michael. The atmosphere was instantly relaxed and friendly; like a group of friends getting together after spending time apart. But you only had to glance around the room for that to seem an unlikely reality. There was a huge mix of nationalities from all over Europe and the Americas, making the resulting range of conversation and experiences interesting to say the least.

Dinner itself was an intimate affair, with dimmed lights, candles and guests seated on the floor arranged around a centre spread. Good food, good wine and good conversation all made for a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

With a base of members spread across 80 cities all over the world, it certainly seems like the KitchenParty ethos is one people have already found easy to relate to. And why not? The service KitchenParty provides is simple in both idea and execution, and best of all it is free.

For 2012, they are launching their new “Wednesday Dinners” initiative, which, according to Michael, seeks to transform that boring midweek evening into a regular opportunity to enjoy a shared dinner experience.

By the end of the year, they hope to see regular “Wednesday Dinners” in 40 cities worldwide. The chance to enjoy a home-cooked meal anywhere in the world is an exciting prospect, and one that KitchenParty is already well on the way to making a reality.

Ever thought… ‘Where are all the Koreans hiding in this city?’ OK, probably not. But maybe you have thought that you are tired of empanadas and pizza. Although it might seem like Buenos Aires has a limited spectrum in terms of cuisine, you just need to know where to look to find something, well, different.

Buenos Aires has the second largest Korean community in Latin America. Korean immigration was in full swing in the 1980s and has since slowed, but has eventually amounted to some 50,000 people. Most of the community currently reside in the neighbourhoods of Flores and Once, so that’s where our search for something out of the ordinary began…

1. Bi Won

The best-known Korean restaurant in the city for a reason; The Korean owners of Bi Won have developed an extensive menu comprised of both classic and contemporary dishes. Dining is on the formal side, and the décor follows suit. There’s no need to throw on heels or a suit, but the environment sets the tone for the meal. In the afternoons you can choose from a selection of more traditional plates, and in the evenings you’ll find almost every Korean delight you can think of among the pages of the menu.

Wanting to try a few staples, I chose an afternoon meal. Don’t trust the online listings for opening hours, the waiters tell me they’ve been meaning to change them for years. If you arrive after 2pm expecting to eat, you might be told the kitchen has closed.

But if you call in advance or get there in time, try some traditional food. A classic is bibimbap, which literally means ‘mixed meal’, and consists of a bowl of rice with vegetables. Bibimbap is prepared at your table, and before serving, a final touch of sesame oil and gochujang, a spicy red pepper and chili paste, is added.

A second dish you shouldn’t skip ordering here is bulgogi – thin slices of sirloin beef marinated with soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, garlic, pepper, scallions, mushrooms and other “secret” spices that neither the chef or the waiter would reveal. They even denied bribes. I only ordered one, but given time and a second stomach, I could have happily eaten two. The flavor combination was exquisite and the meat was extremely tender.

Bi Won’s prices range from $60-$100. For more information, click here.

2. Bo- Sung (Formerly Mido)

Marked only by a sign that says 보 줄도, the stairs behind the plastic butcher’s curtain that hangs over the door look like they lead to nowhere. In reality those stairs lead to the meat heaven that is Korean barbecue.

The restaurant is a lot to take in if you have never had the experience before. There are about 15 rows of tables, with silver exhaust fans hanging from the ceiling over a charcoal grill that is built in to the table itself. Korean barbecue, gogi gui, literally means ‘roasted meat’, and refers to the Korean method of grilling beef, pork, chicken or other types of meat.

At Bo-Sung there’s no menu. Just pick a table and sit down. After the waiter brings the hot coals over and lights the fire in the tiny stove, he places a metal grill over the coals and it’s time to eat.

The table fills up before your eyes. Little bowls or banchan, filled with tripe, rice, bean sprouts, pickled parsnip, various forms of seaweed, sautéed spinach, peanuts marinated in soy and the most traditional kimchi are the normal accompaniments to Korean barbecue. Along with ten or so side dishes, come steamed pork dumplings, oysters and some sort of fried white fish that the waiter’s wouldn’t name.

Nonetheless, the centerpiece of the whole meal is meat. Meat. Meat. A plate piled high of raw beef and spicy pork. But what makes Korean barbecue so unique is that you cook the meat yourself.

The way your meal tastes is also up to you, with flavours like soy, miso with soy, garlic and chili on hand, for $80 you can have all the food you can handle.

For more information, click here.

3. Sinko

If your palate is lacking some fire, Sinko can light it. Specializing in family-style meals and as a place to hold events, the restaurant itself is huge. A location often chosen for celebrations within the Korean community, the space feels festive. And the entire menu is made for sharing.

One of the dishes was a meeting of cultures, so to speak. “A Korean picada” as owner Roberto Chung called it, the real name is a little harder to pronounce. Ra bok ki, a combination of white fish, cabbage, bok choy, rice and ramen noodles and a lot of gochujang spicy red pepper and chili paste, made tears well up in my eyes.

Another elusive item besides hot hot hot spice, that’s hard to find here in BA, is iced coffee. Sinko has it, along with many other delicious cold drinks. This is a place to share and come with friends. Just make sure they can handle spicy, otherwise they’ll leave crying.

Sinko’s prices range from $50-$100. For more information, click here. 

4. Estilo Coreano

 Who said Puerto Madero was the most expensive place to eat out in BA? Enter Estilo Coreano.

On the quest to find the best of the best for Korean food, this restaurant definitely wins for the best price. In this instance, the saying ‘you get what you pay for’ is true.

With $40 you can eat in semi-Korean food in a non-Korean environment. The plus side of this? Estilo Coreano is the most accessible Korean restaurant and has the most modern feel. You get everything you would expect with the Puerto Madero scene; lavish chandeliers with black crystal accents, chic floor-standing paper lanterns and paintings adorning every wall.

The fixed price lunch menu was basic but affordable. A complimentary soup and rolls start the meal, very porteño, not very Coreano. The dish of the day includes a take on a traditional dish with rice, and a choice of dessert is included in the deal. My choice of a wok style chicken bulogogi was average, but then wok is not a traditional cooking style for bulogogi, and chicken is not often used as the selection of meat.

At night the menu shifts up a gear, and perhaps so does the quality. For $65 you can enjoy a chef’s tasting menu with a small sampling of the various main dishes on offer. Whilst the food isn’t the most traditional, the location certainly makes up for it.

For more information click here.

5. Casa Feliz: 행복한 가정

A happy find: Walking off the streets of Barrio Flores into Casa Feliz, was like going from Buenos Aires to Seoul. The walls are a pastel green, and bamboo plants growing out of rectangular pots line the front windows of the restaurant. With not a porteño in sight, this was clearly a spot in the barrio that only people who live nearby would ever find… unless you are a gringa wandering around Flores looking for some fine Korean food.

The specialty at Casa Feliz is soup. Koreans eat soup with almost every meal of the day and almost every customer had a bowl of steaming soup in front of them – a sure sign that it’s the thing to order. Tteok-manduguk dumpling soup was my selection and the beef broth came with mandu, Korean stuffed dumplings, chives, pork, rice noodles and egg.

The only way to really understand the menu is to read Korean, but if you’re far from fluent, there are pictures to guide you in your selection, and some choices have a brief explanation in Spanish.

Don’t be surprised if you get funny looks on entering – you’ll almost certainly be the only non-Korean customer. After your soup, walk down the street a little to the nearest kiosko and get a Korean ice cream to top off your meal. But don’t expect to find any Bon-Bon frozen goodies – only mango, watermelon and aloe vera treats fill those freezers.

Casa Feliz’s prices range from $40-$60. For more information, click here.

New regulations will allow farmers to rent more land from the government in an attempt to increase food production in Cuba. “Those persons or lease holders that have really shown they can produce, will be able to increase their land,” said top agricultural official, William Hernandez Morales.

Currently, farmers are allowed to lease 13 hectares. With the new legislation, this amount will be increased 67 hectares.

The state owns 70% of the arable land in Cuba, and private farmers own the other 30 %. Private farmers produce 57% of the food in the country.

Since taking over in 2008, president Raul Castro has tried to increase food production by turning over 1.6 million hectares of land to farmers.

The Cuban government has also recently allowed foreign investment in the country. “The assimilation of foreign investment guarantees access to markets for Cuban goods and services,” said Foreign Trade and Investment minister Rodrigo Malmierca.

John is the face behind, and hands serving, at the celebrated Soho haunt Magdalena’s Party, a bar-resto-club as famous for its cheap cocktails as its legendary California Burrito. Having moved to Buenos Aires three years ago from the US, he decided to fufill a lifelong ambition to open his own eatery, and has been working on it with his five best friends ever since.

How did you wind up in Buenos Aires?

I moved here three years ago with an argentine friend to work on our web development company, that’s my main business. My family emigrated from Vancouver to the US seven years ago, and I moved to San Diego, to start working in healthcare and website design. We started working with someone here in Argentina, and then I decided to split the company, I went one direction, he went the other direction. So I came here.

Had you been to Argentina before?

I’d been to Argentina twice, and I loved it. I’m done with the US, I’m totally over it. I never felt at home there, it was actually really easy for me to leave and I thought fine, I packed my bags, moved down, the company grew… Some of us are Argentines, though we get a lot of expats, kind of like The Argentina Independent, a lot of expats coming in to do internships.

And how did Magdalena’s party come about?

I’ve always wanted to have a bar or a restaurant, that was like, my dream, and then about a year ago a good buddy of mine, who I met when I got here, we were always like hey, one day we have to open a restaurant, and then we decided a year ago let’s just do it! So we opened in January.

The idea was to open something where we could do what we wanted. We felt that generally in Argentina the service is quite poor, we just wanted something where you could kind of feel at home, with cheap drinks- people here charge a lot for drinks as Argentines don’t drink a lot, so we were like why not make cheaper drinks, to make it more accessible to everyone? And for expats on a budget, it won’t be a problem. Cocktails for $25. We wanted it to be fun and cool, really high quality food and drink, lots of options at the bar, live music, live djs. We like it that people can stumble on in, meet the bartenders, have a chat.

How did you decide on the food?

All of our food I would say is generally US inspired. I mean, for me, coming from Santiago, all the food is southern California style, or Mexican- our tacos for example are Tijuana-style tacos, or from northern Mexico the fish tacos…now we’re doing California surf n’ turf burritos, which is the most southern Californian Santiago thing you could ever eat, it’s only found there. We wanted to bring that home cooking vibe, you know, good quality cooking, good prices. We’re not an organic restaurant but we generally make everything in the house- our hot sauce, our tortillas- there’s a lot of things that we make ourselves, where others would just go out and buy it. We wanted to be more natural.

Do you get more expats or argentines in the bar?

Our get-go from the beginning, what I think makes us unique, is that we always wanted to be fifty-fifty. We don’t wanna be a bar only catering to backpackers and tourists, because then you’ll just be another expat place in the middle of Argentina. We wanted it to be a place where people could come by and meet people, where porteños could meet Americans.Two of the partners are Argentine, Belgrano born and bred, and then it’s my sister and I and Teddy who’s American- we are fifty-fifty in the partner side, we wanted to be fifty-fifty on the bar side. That was one of the original concepts of the bar. We try very hard not to go one direction or the other. If we feel we’re leaning too much on the argentine side we’ll push up promotion of the american side.

And what sets you apart?

Brunch- we thought actually, you know, there isn’t really a good brunch out there, and not a brunch like a nice piece of bread with smoked salmon or whatever, I mean like a greasy american diner kind of meal that’ll cure your hangover. That’s our bid with brunch, we’re catering for the kind of person looking for a hangover cure. For fifty pesos we do a bloody Mary and a brunch meal, you walk out of here and you feel great.

What are your picks of the menu?

My personal favourite for brunch is the Cali-coast, which is something unique. It’s like a crepe slash omelette, Mexican style, stuffed with salsa and guacamole on top, it’s the ultimate hangover cure. And then for dinner, I mean the California burrito’s my favourite, we’re still perfecting it! My favourite drinks here..? We have two, we make an ice tea, chai flavoured with an infused vodka, it’s not on the menu. Its called the vodka ice tea. It gets you really drunk as you can’t taste the vodka and it’s delicious. We also have a vodka infused with chilli pepper.

Why Palermo soho?

I think Palermo soho has the onda that we want. It’s not as new as Hollywood, it’s central to everything, the buildings are older. Recoleta is too claustrophobic for me.

How long will you stay in Argentina for?

I’ve kind of made the decision that Argentina is the place I want to stay and live, and now I’m kind of making the steps in order to make that happen.

What do you like so much about it?

I don’t get bored here, there’s always something changing, always something new, and I found that the States was quite boring- the organisation, everything being so structured, the traffic… I live in Palermo, I walk to work, everything is right here and easy to get to, there’s always something on. I never get bored.

I like the lack of organisation in Buenos Aires- the chaos. The security doesn’t bother me like it does other people, or the bad sidewalks… you know like dogs shitting all over the sidewalk. The things that bother people the first time they come here don’t really bother me. A lot of the stuff were used to in the States feels quite sterile in comparison. And that’s what I love about here.

If you were to live anywhere else, where would it be?

If I didn’t live in Buenos Aires I would…hmmm… that’s when you know you want live somewhere, when you can’t think of anywhere you’d rather live! I’m good here!