Restaurant where Messi caused a ruckus has already been voted best in Latin America

By Luciana Rosa

The player, who is in Argentina for a friendly match of his national team against Panama on Thursday, chose Don Julio, in Palermo, for dinner.

In 2020 the restaurant specializing in parrilla was voted the best in Latin America.

Besides the crowding caused by the PSG star, it is customary to see the restaurant always with a line of tourists at the door.

COULD IT BE THE FAMILY BACKGROUND?

The year before its election at the top of the list, 2019, the restaurant of sommelier and businessman Pablo Rivero reached rank 34 among the 50 best in the world.

Pablo, however, is keen to remind us that Don Julio is not a boutique restaurant but a family one.

“We started with my father, mother, and grandmother 21 years ago,” he says.

The Riveros lived in the upper part of the building where the parrilla that has become the best place to eat in Latin America stands today.

The house where the parrilla owner Don Julio grew up today houses the administrative part of the restaurant.

The idea of the restaurant started a bit with my parents’ intention that I find a job and, little by little, I fell in love with the profession”, recalls Pablo.

Even the restaurant’s name had little pretentious inspiration: it is a tribute to the family friend who encouraged them to start the business.

With roots in the city of Rosario, the family first opened its doors on November 26, 1999, when Pablo was only 20 years old.

Today, the family can rest assured that the offspring has found his place in the sun in the market and, in addition, has become one of the most renowned personalities in the Argentine gastronomic universe.

The international recognition came as an award in one of the world’s most prestigious rankings, such as the 50th Best.

“This is the result of years of work,” explains Pablo.

“Our goal is not to be among the 50 best or first or anything like that; it simply happened.”

“For our part, we have been working for 20 years in the same way, with rigor and demand,” he justifies.

TRADITION IS THE SECRET

Whoever thinks that the differential of this restaurant is in the moment of cooking is very wrong.

At least that’s what the owner guarantees, who points to the previous process of selecting the products as the great trump card.

“It’s not very sophisticated; it’s a barbecue on the parrilla,” he insists.

“The sophisticated part happens in the field, in the maturation time, in the selection of the animal,” he adds.

For him, the magic is there and not in the fire.

“The fire is simply the energy that cooked it, and the parrilla is just the support of this great product that comes from a huge work done in the butcher shop and the field; that’s the truth,” he says.

Despite still deserving applause, as the Argentine tradition dictates, the roaster becomes one more piece in preserving a flavor that starts to be sought out much earlier.

“What the roaster does is to guide this quality without wasting it,” explains Pablo.

Food critic Rodolfo Reich, who writes for the newspaper La Nación and the magazine Brando, confirms that Don Julio is a parrilla that greatly respects Argentine traditions and cooking but that its differential is part of a movement that occurs throughout Latin America in search of improving the raw material.

Argentina has always had good meat, but before, nobody considered where it comes from, who produces it, or how”.

PRIMACY IN MEAT SELECTION

“We select and buy the animals still alive in the market of Liniers – in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires – looking for a certain quality, selecting by life span, weight, breed, and genetics.”

“Then these animals are slaughtered and, for each cut, we give them a different maturation time”, says the owner of the place.

Pablo explains that the approximately 12 tonnes of beef he stores at the site must be kept at an ideal temperature not to spoil the product.

For this reason, Don Julio has an exclusive refrigerator right in front of the restaurant.

The meat is stored for a maximum of 28 days before being grilled and served.

Until the beginning of the pandemic, the butcher Don Julio was an exclusive shop for those who consumed the meat already prepared in the restaurant.

With Covid-19, the parrilla closed its doors for months due to the strict quarantine imposed in Argentina and began to sell not only the exclusive wines on its menu but also the meat for its customers to prepare at home.

EVOLUTION OF GASTRONOMY

For critic Rodolfo Reich, Argentinean gastronomy’s growth and improvement process is happening throughout Latin America.

“The entire subcontinent has new generations of chefs, restaurant owners, and sommeliers who have given a new impetus to the region,” he points out.

“We learn a lot from other countries in the region, from restaurants that aim very strongly at tourism and from where a more global look emerges, with a universal consumer as well,” he says.

Besides, Rodolfo points to a change in the Argentinean palate itself, which would have been modified by the influence of the several migratory currents that the country received not only in its formation but also in recent years – especially from other Latin American countries.

It would also be impossible to think about the process of sophistication of Argentine cuisine without relating it to the rise of local wine.

“This more careful eye to detail started to be generated in the wine environment,” says Rodolfo.

The man in charge of Don Julio is himself a sommelier who claims that wine represents 30% of Argentine gastronomy.

“We are the fifth world producer and consumer; we account for 80% of what we produce,” he says.

According to him, the wine scene in Argentina is growing, headed by the boom of young winemakers about ten years ago.

“This is great news for the country because we have first-level producers breaking boundaries in the wine world,” he celebrates.

According to Rodolfo, the service is one of the weak points of Argentine restaurants.

However, this is also changing with the growth of wine-related businesses in Argentina, which value the capricious attention of the public.

This factor contributed to taking Don Julio to the top of the podium.

Despite being a parrilla, traditionally a more stripped-down establishment with informal roots, the restaurant did a thorough job regarding good customer service.

An essential treat to complete the meal in the restaurant that was once the best in Latin America with a golden key.

With information from UOL