Celebrating Beef at the Buenos Aires Parrilla or Steakhouse

We met an expat friend for dinner in Palermo Soho the day we’d been gathering prices for our Buenos Aires Price Check post and expressed surprise to him that prices hadn’t gone up much since we were last here a few years ago. He said he thought they had increased and that he didn’t even buy groceries much any more to make meals because the restaurant food in the city was so good and so cheap!

We don’t blame him. Eating out in Buenos Aires is a real treat – especially if you like meat. And while we’re big fans of Argentine beef and the best Buenos Aires parrillas or steakhouses that are masters at the art of barbecue, there’s so much to eat in the Argentine capital if you don’t eat meat.

We always find it amusing when travel writers and bloggers complain in stories that there is little else but empanadas and steak to eat in Buenos Aires. Because there is plenty of food from other culinary cultures served up in the city – albeit with varying degrees of ‘authenticity’, as loaded as that concept is.

If you know where to look, you’ll find just as much variety in Buenos Aires as you will in Paris, London or New York. There is excellent Italian everywhere, there is authentic French, the Peruvian ceviche is divine, and sushi is omnipresent – and that’s just for starters. But we’re not here to write a guidebook to Buenos Aires. We did that on our last trip here.

Celebrating Beef at the Buenos Aires Parrilla or Steakhouse

For us, this time, it’s all about savouring the beef and scouting out the best parrillas in our neighbourhood. On this trip, which is focused on exploring what’s local, authentic, and quintessential in a place, we decided to try as many parrillas (the word simply means ‘grill’) or steakhouses that we could in our barrio, Palermo Soho.

We had eaten at most of them before, when researching that guidebook, and we were pleased to see that the economic downturn had weeded out the steakhouses that weren’t up to scratch. What was left was the cream of the crop, the parrillas that Porteños frequent.

So what makes the beef in Buenos Aires so special? Every waiter and chef we ask in a parrilla always has the same answer: happy cows eating Pampas grass. The cows are happy because they’re allowed to roam the Pampas (plains), free of antibiotics and growth hormones, and they don’t even know what corn feed is!

Traditionally, Argentine beef is not aged, and ‘cooking’ beef just means starting with the meat at room temperature, seasoning it, barbecuing it over hot charcoals, and serving it simply.

The Parrilla Experience

The full parrilla experience usually starts with the first course: some sausages or chorizo, and/or morcilla (pork or beef ‘blood’ sausages respectively), and perhaps an offal selection (you must try sweetbreads – mollejas de ternera, our favourites, are the veal sweetbreads), and maybe some provoleta (deliciously smoky grilled cheese).

This is accompanied by chimichurri, a sauce generally made by the chef to his own recipe (and strength of heat), but which usually includes parsley, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, and red pepper flakes.

By this time, you’re probably starting to feel full and wishing that you’d brought along more friends, because the next course is what you’re really here for – the beef!

There are many cuts of beef that you can order, but our favourites are the bife de lomo (tenderloin), bife de chorizo (no, not sausage, it’s actually strip loin) and ojo de bife (rib eye).

While the lomo is the most tender cut, the other two cuts actually have the most flavour in our opinion, although they can occasionally be a little chewy.

Expats and visitors to Buenos Aires often tell us that they have trouble getting the right ‘doneness’ they want on the plate.

We agree that it can be confusing, but we completely disagree on the widely-held notion among many travel writers that Argentines cook all their steaks well-done. These writers obviously haven’t spent much time in the city and don’t know many Argentines!

The asador (grill guy) is probably cooking your steak well-done because of Argentines’ perceived notion that tourists want everything cooked right through! Because of this, in recent years, we’ve taken to ordering our steaks rosado con y bien jugoso literally meaning ‘red and juicy’. Which is just the way you want your Argentine steak cooked.

As part of our meat-focussed mission in Palermo, we tried parrillas at all levels, from posh to plain. In the next post (link above), we’ll look at whether a single steak at one place is really worth an entire meal at another less fancy parrilla and we’ll take you through our list of local favourites.