Food | Kobe | giant metal doors
Related Topics
Related Articles
The Heart Of Buenos Aires
by Joseph GuintoThe decor of all these restaurants tends to
vary more than their menus. Most restaurateurs in Palermo
prefer to serve food that is true to their roots. Pizza and
pasta - brought by those first Italian immigrants - are
staples. So are various cuts of beef from the grass-fed
cattle of Argentina's endless wide-open spaces. The meat
served here, in particular the lomo, or filet mignon, bests
high-dollar Kobe beef any day of the week. It is especially
good in old-school places like La Cabrera, Social Paraiso,
and Lo de Jesus. The last of those is a traditional
parilla (steak house), meaning tile
floors, black-and-white photos covering the walls, a
meat-filled menu, a few dozen of Argentina's still-underrated
wines - that kind of thing. On my visit to Lo de Jesus, I
opted for the lomo al champignon, which consisted of a French
mushroom sauce covering an Argentine filet mignon that,
though cooked just on the medium side of medium rare, was so
tender, so delicious, that it confused me - I almost spit out
my first bite, which would have been a shame. But at $9 for
the entrée, I suppose I could have had seconds.
For visitors who want to live life beyond lomo,
trendier locales like Mott, Bar Uriarte, and Casa Cruz have sprung
up, serving modernized takes on classic Argentine food in settings
that would not be out of place in West L.A. or in TriBeCa. Casa
Cruz, in either Palermo SoHo or Palermo Hollywood - depending on
who is drawing the lines of the sub-subneighborhoods - is the
city's most glam restaurant. Enter through the giant metal doors,
and you're greeted by an oversize oval-shaped bar that's surrounded
by low couches. In all Palermo, this is the place to be seen.
Beyond the bar, the dining room offers almost nonexistent lighting,
plush seating, red walls (I think - it's very dark), and a techno
soundtrack. On the menu are rabbit and seafood, a surprising rarity
in this neighborhood. The night we called for a dinner reservation,
we were told a table could be available for us a
la una - at one a.m. We chose to eat elsewhere.
Share Your Comments