Small plate, creative food, is still a thing here. Is it still a thing wherever you are? Three relatively new spots recently checked out.
Social Paraiso Bistro, Riobamba 1220, Recoleta – Long time eaters in Buenos Aires may well remember Social Paraiso, in Palermo, one of the early on spots that made a pretty good stab and getting creative with Argentine cuisine. It was never amazing, but it was always interesting, and good. They closed back in 2015, and resurfaced just recently in Recoleta, in the space vacated by Teatríz during the pandemic. In a sense, it’s totally new. Completely new staff, completely new ambiance, completely new menu. As best I could determine, the only thing that’s the same is the ownership. On a recent weekday afternoon I popped in solo. There were four other people in the restaurant, an older couple picking at their food (and sending some of it back, clearly not happy), and two local business-folk more or less just negotiating something or other over coffees.
I like a good bread basket, but it kinda oughta have, I don’t know, bread in it. This one had two freeform blobs of dough that were kind of like Indian pakora, but without any filling, just dough, and not even cooked through – still raw and gooey in the center. There were two slices of bread, one was an overly sweet, dried out piece of cornbread, the other, actually a quite good slice of an olive oil bread with scattered threads of saffron baked into it. Still, this did not bode well, but my order was already in.
I liked the idea of calamari empanadas. And that’s about where it ended. The dough, fried, was dripping with oil – I mean, come on, you can just drain it on a paper towel or something when it comes out of the fryer. And the calamari inside was overcooked to the point of being rubber bullets. I assume the sauce underneath was meant to be some sort of tartare sauce, but it was just unpleasant, and broken.
The pate fared better. It’s actually a really good pate, and the pickled mustard seeds and radishes, and the sweet reduction sauce around it made for a great contrast. But it’s not served with anything, like pieces of toast or crackers. What does one do with it? Put it on those blobs of pakora dough? It certainly didn’t go with sweet cornbread. It was okay at best with the olive oil bread, the bite of the saffron competed with the flavors garnishing the pate and didn’t quite work. The older couple had also ordered the same dish, and the man had asked for some bread to go with it. The waitress’ response was to bring him one, single slice, of the cornbread, on a small plate, for the two of them to share.
Service itself was uninterested. The two waitresses spent most of the time out on the sidewalk chatting, texting, and smoking, rather than paying any attention to their customers. Neither was friendly, neither seemed to know anything about the food. I really wanted to like this place, but just didn’t. A shame, because it’s such a great space, and if the food and service was even just equal to their old spot, they’d have a winner on their hands.
Obrador, Charlone 202, Chacarita – I first read about this spot awhile back in an article on the hot new spots to dine in Chacarita. It’s sort of the new Villa Crespo, now that Villa Crespo has become either passé or at least too expensive for new ventures to open.
I started off with a “Karen moment”. I hate the use of that name, because one of my sisters is named Karen, and she’s not “a Karen”. Now, as you can see from the photo, this is a small place, there are maybe eight tables for two inside, and double that out on the sidewalk. I’d arrived, and was told I could seat myself at any of them, and I picked a table by the window, with a view of the whole place. A couple, maybe mid-50s, came in a few minutes later, by which time several tables, including all the window tables, were taken. Relegated to a table off to the left in the corner, the woman announced she wanted my table. She “had a reservation” and that entitled her “to pick whichever table she wanted”. She demanded of me to switch with them. I demurred. She demanded of the staff that I be made to switch with them. She announced again, loudly, that she had a reservation. So did I. She demanded to know when I’d made my reservation. Irrelevant, and I ignored her from then on. She continued to rant for a bit, the manager came over and suggested she take it down a notch. She then stormed outside to smoke a cigarette she’d just rolled.
On to the food, which is all small plate stuff. My waiter, a cutie (the one at the counter in the background of the first photo), suggested maybe 2-3 plates, depending on how hungry I was. First up, a tiradito de chernia, a sliced ceviche of stone bass. According to the menu, it was cured in a leche with oyster sauce. I didn’t see any evidence of oyster sauce, though it may have just been a subtle amount blended in. Mostly it seemed to be pink grapefruit juice, heavily flavored with pink peppercorns. It was actually really good, if maybe slightly too many of the peppercorns thrown in there.
Next up, a queso llanero, a Venezuelan cheese that’s similar to haloumi, here, grilled, and placed over a cherry tomato chutney. Great flavors, I think I’d have preferred, texturally, that the chutney hadn’t been pureed, and had been a bit chunky. And, finally, a roasted eggplant served in a bowl of salmorejo, an Andalusian soup made of tomatoes, garlic, bread, and olive oil; and accompanied by a dollop of mascarpone. A little disappointing. It just didn’t all come together well. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t very interesting, and I didn’t quite get the combination. Personal tastes I suppose.
One note – this place bills itself as a “wine bar” as well as restaurant. Here’s the thing. Having a great wine list of wines by the bottle, which they do, does not make you a wine bar. A wine bar implies a good selection of wines by the glass. Having two house wines, one white, one red, does not make you a wine bar either. Just sayin’.
Overall, nice place. Good service. And I like the food for the most part. I’ll definitely be back.
Chuí, Charlone 202, Villa Crespo – So maybe Villa Crespo isn’t so passé after all. Maybe it’s just gotten pricier than new chefs can afford, or maybe all the good spots are taken. I’ve been hearing about this new vegetarian place for a few months now, and its small plate approach fit right in with this post, so I headed out for lunch. It’s a massive space – I don’t know if it was some sort of warehouse, or garage, but now you enter, there’s a small bar, mostly it seems for waiting, then there’s a sort of jungle garden with tables dotted throughout it, then there’s a huge dining area, sort of split in half, either further or closer from/to the kitchen. And the kitchen – dominated by two huge wood burning ovens. It’s all a bit overwhelming – I’d have to guess that the place might well seat around 120 people when full, and by the time I finished lunch, at almost 3pm, not only was it full, but there were people waiting to get in, on a weekday.
My waiter suggested that 2-3 plates would be about right, depending on hunger level and plate size, much like the waiter at the previous place, though much less cute. They do divide the menu in three parts – small plates, regular size plates, and pizzas (large only). I decided to go with three small plates. And a glass of wine – they have a nice little selection by the glass as well as a decent list by the bottle.
I picked the butter beans, wood oven baked, then chilled (I didn’t know they were chilled when I ordered it, one assumes that wood-oven baked beans are going to be a hot dish, no?), and served in a broth of lime and mint. It’s garnished with more mint, and chives and cilantro, and a good dusting of spirulina powder. It’s spectacular. It might just be one of the best bean dishes I’ve ever had. I couldn’t stop eating them, and then wanted more. Note the cover photo on this post….
But I had more, other, enroute, and in short order a lovely bowl of portobello ceviche was on the table. Thin slices of the mushroom (the choice of mushroom varies depending on what the chef decides, I gather) lightly “cured” in a citrus and coconut milk broth, and packed with fried corn, chili slices (red jalapeños), nectarine wedges, cilantro, red onion, and more. Excellent!
I couldn’t decide among a trio of other small plates, but my waiter highly recommended the queso llanero, the same cheese as I’d had, grilled, at the previous spot. Why not compare? Here, two massive slabs (combined, they had to be over half a pound) of the cheese are roasted until well browned on all sides in the wood burning oven. Then they’re drizzled with a fruit vinegar (made in house – a lot of fermentation and curing going on in jars and crocks judiciously scattered around the room), along with a whole lot of dried oregano and some bits of smoky dried chili. Two slabs of this cheese were just too much cheese for one person, and I got to talking to the two women at the table next to me and ended up passing my second slab to them. Really good dish as well, for me, it could have used more chili, and I’m a bit iffy on the dried oregano – yeah, it has a punchier flavor than fresh, but it’s also a lot dried flakes just.. there. Still, damn, the flavor was delightful.
Though basically full, after three such great dishes I couldn’t resist trying a dessert. Simply labeled as “butterscotch”, my waiter described it as a flan, but different. It’s a very rich, solid pudding below a dark caramel sauce (taken into that just bitter enough territory without tasting burnt). I wouldn’t really identify the flavor as butterscotch, it was all more dark caramelly, but it was so good, who cares? They offer coffee, filtered “americano-style”, rather than Argentina’s ubiquitous espressos. And it’s good coffee, though they’re clearly a bit iffy about serving it that way – the bartender came over with the pot, and a classic coffee cup, and poured about an espresso’s worth of coffee in it and then asked me to “say when”. When I let her fill it up, she looked at me and opined “that’s a lot of coffee”.
I can’t say I’m excited by the space – it’s a bit industrial chic gone rogue (and given their stated aversion to plastics, I wonder if they’ve given a thought to the fact that most of their roof is plastic). Service is friendly and helpful, though there weren’t nearly enough waiters for a full house, still, it wasn’t hard to get their attention and things arrived in a timely manner. They just all looked a bit overwhelmed. The food, pretty, but not fussily so. But flavor, they understand. Not just some of the best vegetarian food I’ve had in BA, but some of the best food I’ve had in BA recently. [Edit: see my comment below from a couple of days later.]
And that’s a good place to end this post – one thumb down, two thumbs up. Life ain’t bad.
[…] And, in that same sort of vein, we found ourselves one lunch at Teatriz, Riobamba 1220, in Recoleta. Now, it’s not that huge spectacle that, say, Teatriz in Madrid is – but that’s over the top Philipe Starck. But, it’s definitely a large spot, with a huge window looking out on the street – a lovely building across the way, wonderful Roman columns, all behind security grating now, and turned into a fertilitiy clinic – fascinating watching people literally seeming to sneak in and out of the place, furtively glancing around hoping that no one has seem them enter or leave. But back to the restaurant, and it’s mix of white tablecloth draped tables with black and white harlequin pattern clothed chairs – a bit much on the eye, but at least they didn’t go for a riot of color, like, say, Le Cirque in New York. The crowd, clearly upscale, and leaning towards the older set – at least on the one afternoon we were there. The upscale is no doubt maintained, given that the prices are as well – in fact, as it turns out, Teatriz offered up easily the most expensive lunch I’ve ever eaten in Buenos Aires, a three course meal, with average priced wine, running us 100 pesos apiece. Admittedly, we ordered two of the more expensive main courses that we could have, but even had we not it would have run us 90, and could have run us 110… the menu, I gather, is the same at lunch and dinner, with appetizers and desserts that range from mid-teens to mid twenties, and main courses from high twenties to mid-forties. [Closed during the pandemic, replaced in 2022 with Social Paraiso Bistro] […]
Hmm… just a couple of days later and a revisit to Chuí. I’d waxed poetic enough about those butterbeans that Henry wanted to try them. So we decided to go there for our “date night”. What a different experience. A bit more packed than it had been at lunch, and reservations were clearly necessary (which we had). Pounding music, at the level that made the tables shake constantly. Service was borderline rude, and not just from our main waiter, but pretty much everyone who showed up at the table, serving, clearing, whatever.
I don’t have photos because, date night, and so I don’t tend to take them, but even Henry agreed I should have taken one of the butterbean dish. While it was as tasty as it had been two days before, in contrast to that generous heap of beans on the plate, the beans barely covered half the dish this time – it almost looked like leftovers from some other table after they’d eaten half. On the positive side, great focaccia and a dish of babaganoush was delicious, albeit rather small. The mushroom paté on the other hand looked like someone had the runs and deposited them on a plate. A paté should be basically solid, not a pool of near liquid, and it’d be so easy to do that and make it look appetizing. Plus, it just wasn’t very good, very sour and unpleasant.
While those plates, all cold ones, arrived in timely fashion, the one larger hot dish we ordered to split, the papas annas, took an hour and a quarter to make it to the table, just tossed on the table without explanation or apology.
Honestly, I’d been thinking that this might be a candidate for one of my top five for vegetarian food in town, but now, I’m not so sure. If the experience can be that hit and miss, for the moment, all I can say is “cautiously recommended”.