3 Great-Value Restaurants On Latin America’s Food Best List
3 Great-Value Restaurants On Latin America’s Food Best List
Elaborate tasting menus and fine dining dominate the annual World’s 50 Best Restaurants list but it’s a different story with the Latin American edition of the awards. The top spot for 2018 did go to Lima’s Maido for the second year running (15-course menu £103), but further down the list there are plenty of restaurants offering great cooking at much more affordable prices. Here are 10 of the tastiest bargains around. Quoted from the site page mofongosphilly.com
Narda Comedor, Buenos Aires, Argentina
In her native Argentina, chef Narda Lepes is a familiar face thanks to her appearances on high-profile TV shows over the past two decades. However, Comedor, open for just a year, has given her a new platform to encourage beef-obsessed Argentinians to put greens first. While it isn’t exclusively vegetarian, Comedor’s bargain (£7.60) two-course lunch menu incorporates cereals, legumes and protein in each abundant and vibrant main– and also discreetly injects a healthy portion of veg. It’s a well-lit space with Scandinavian-style airiness and clever furnishings, such as chairs with built-in storage for bags, and its opening hours (Mon-Sat 8.30am-11pm, Sun 8am-8pm) ensure Comedor is busy from breakfast to dinner with Narda fans, families and office workers.
Proper, Buenos Aires
In an anonymous-looking former mechanic’s workshop in Palermo, dynamic young duo Leo Lanussol and Augusto Mayer deal in the best of Argentina’s seasonal produce with a daily-changing menu. “We’re a small restaurant with a large structure,” says Mayer. A wood-fired oven is the centrepiece of open-plan kitchen, with elements of every dish cooked over flames: grilled squid, broccoli and bean aioli, say, or roast leeks with cauliflower mash (both (£4.30) – it’s small plates for sharing, and some tables are communal. Leave room for the crème caramel, a dream of vanilla and dulce de leche caramel (£2.80). Proper also has a strong natural wine list. No reservations.
Parrilla Don Julio, Buenos Aires
Booking is essential at this meat-heavy parrilla (grill) which picked up two awards in 2018’s Latin America 50 Best: for the art of hospitality and as Argentina’s top restaurant. Grass-fed beef, house-cured charcuterie and meticulous product selection ensured its place at the top; it also has one of the country’s most carefully curated wine lists and cellars. In this former butcher’s shop, still sporting the original tiled floor, parrillero Pepe Sotelo tends the grills, and the exposed brick walls are lined with loving messages scrawled upon empty malbec bottles. Share lamb longaniza sausage (£3.75) and grilled goat’s cheese provolone (£6.30) before moving on to mouth-watering rib-eye (£14) or a leaner rump steak (£13.70).