For anyone who loves barbecue, Argentinean Francis Mallmann is a legend. As the head of nine restaurants spread across three continents, he masters open flame cuisine like no other, of which he is considered the greatest master.
The story
His restaurants are scattered around the world, but his home is in Patagonia, almost on the border with Chile, on a small private island surrounded by waters of a lake that look like a desert. And it is there that Francis Mallmann enjoys lighting up the fire and aligning pieces of meat to the background music of a tango, in the style of the local cowboys, called "rescoldo".
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Mallmann grew up in a small town in the mountains of Patagonia, San Carlos de Bariloche, in a house that he defines as "ruled by fire," used not only in the kitchen, but to heat water and the house in fireplaces, since he was a boy he had been sent to cut wood with his brother, when he wasn't out mountaineering with the gurus of the mountains. His father was a renowned physicist, but he had left school at 13, becoming passionate about cinema. An interest that he still cultivates, given that he is working on a top secret TV series about a food critic.
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In his previous life he was a chef of fine French cuisine, employed at some of the world's leading restaurants. That is, until the midlife crisis that dragged him away from silver cloches and crystal chandeliers. Then he converted to 100% Argentinian cuisine, taking inspiration from the repertoire of the natives and from that of the gauchos, with their incandescent embers. At the time it was far from obvious, instead the gamble was largely rewarded: today Mallmann has nine restaurants, successful books, and broadcasts (including an appearance on Chef’s Table), almost one million followers on Instagram as well as a community of VIP aficionados, including David Beckham, Francis Ford Coppola and the late Anthony Bourdain.
Since 2017, he invites guests to his home and cooks for them. The cost is about $65,000 for 5 nights and 6 people, to which he proposed to tend a bonfire and offer a small essay. Not a bad business, with the taste of adventure given that, if something were to happen, it takes an hour by boat and five or six by road to the nearest town, Comodoro.
Instinct, however, continues to ride beyond common sense. Between pumpkin wedges and potato slices, onion rings and aubergine slices, a new awareness has matured on the embers, which has led Mallmann to exclude meat from his latest book, Green Fire. “I think a gigantic change is coming, it will be faster than we think.” His favorite dish, after all, is basmati rice with red cabbage. "After 45 years of catering, it's what my soul needs."
Source: Outside Online
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