When Agustín BrañaIf he describes his relationship with gastronomy, he could perfectly well be telling a love story. In fact, as happens with many romance stories, she has an exact moment in which she can say “we are no longer separated.” That moment of revelation, in which she decided that she did not want to do anything else in life, happened when she filled the position of a kitchen assistant who was feeling unwell in a restaurant in San Martín de los Andes. She had arrived there escaping the maelstrom of Buenos Aires after a year and a half traveling through Latin America, and her original position was in a gardening and irrigation company. But due to those coincidences of life, the couple who owned the company also had a restaurant that was very pioneering in this idea of “from the garden to the table” that proliferates today. It was 2003 and Agustín had just discovered his vocation.
News: What happened after that revelation?
Agustín Brañas: That day I don’t even remember what I did, but the next day I changed and went again. I did it for three weeks, in parallel with the other job, and one day they asked me if I wanted to stay in the kitchen. This couple, whose restaurant still exists and is now in Meliquina, Avataras, was what pushed me to return to Buenos Aires to study. So I did, and I studied at Ott College. I also met Pablo Massey and started doing some things with him, who at that time was cooking in his house and had what was Uruguay before it was a restaurant, where he produced for events and brands. At the same time, I started working in fishing lodges, a job that gave me money in the summer: I went in in December and left in March. And with those savings I went to Europe, where I did internships in very good restaurants throughout the year. I was in Mugaritz with Andoni Luis Aduriz, in Tragabuches with Dani García.
News: How different was the environment in Europe?
Brañas: It was a very tough, military kitchen. I have gone home crying, because his way is to the point of scaring you. They shout at you ahead of the rest and it goes on for many hours without stopping. In Mugaritz we were 50 cooks and there were 50 diners. They were years of learning a lot and getting better. I went through different restaurants until I spent a year at The River Café, with two English legends who have a restaurant on the Thames. That had a big impact on me, there are many recipes that I make today in Benedetta that are inspired by that experience. I am very restless and entrepreneurial, so after restaurants I had a catering company in Buenos Aires for many years, called Tree Compañía de Cocina. I currently have a restaurant in Switzerland called Chubut Food & Fire, and I work with a gastronomy department for a hotel group that has 24 boutique hotels. We have a team of 35 cooks and we put together the menus according to the latitudes. Today kilometer zero and traceability are fashionable, but I have been doing it for 20 years. The lodges are located in the middle of nature, so you have no choice but to rely on your neighbors.
News: He says it as one more step, but he settled in Switzerland for three years with his children and his wife, Violeta. How was the experience?
Brañas: Today I have four children, the oldest grew up there. We spent six months of the year in Switzerland and six in Buenos Aires, because the restaurant opens in the European winter and summer. We came and went, the kids were small and they had a hard time.
News: Why did you decide to return?
Brañas: Argentina, the family, pulled us. It is also true that this German canton is cold and hard, in winter you have 3 or 4 meters of snow. And the Germans are not easy. I was working all day and Viole was with the kids, so she didn’t fit in as much with our lifestyle, because she is more urban. And it is a fairy tale city, in winter it is all white, in summer it is a thousand colors, and it is the most sophisticated in Switzerland. We fed the owners of the world. And Chubut was a success, it was the combination of Swiss in a five-star, very elegant hotel, to which we put fire, music, vibes and it exploded. We put our magic into it and to this day it is a bomb. But after those three years I started going alone and projects began to appear here.
News: Did you want to have something in your country?
Brañas: Yes, I have wanted to open something in Buenos Aires for a long time to tell a little about what I have been doing. And Benedetta appeared when we were working on Tierra del Fuego, a project that she has not yet opened. She beat him in the race and it has been open for seven months. It is honest gastronomy. It is inspired by a rotisserie. I wanted to make a more colorful, fresher, more current rotisserie, with more traceability, with very good quality raw materials. The roti of 2023, where fishing is not frozen hake that you don’t know where it comes from.
News: What is the dish that best summarizes this idea?
Brañas: Precisely, fishing. Instead of finding the hake milanese, you find one of fresh hook fish that they bring to us directly from Mar del Plata. Our supplier tells me every week what he is going to have and why. Maybe one day there is white salmon, another there is chernia. And the meat for the Milanese comes from a third-generation family meatpacker in La Pampa and for me it is the best meat I can find. We also have delicious cheeses, we make our own ice cream, always in season.
News: And what does he propose new in Tierra del Fuego?
Brañas: It’s more than what I do in Switzerland or in the lodges in Patagonia. More meat, more fire. Benedetta sneaked in and is more feminine, more vegetal. Which I love, because today we treat vegetables as if they were the stars of the place, you can eat a cauliflower steak and it is delicious and even those who eat meat are amazed. Tierra del Fuego is a bit of a continuation of the saga of Chubut in Switzerland. It will be more fine dining, noon and night, with a 100% open kitchen and different types of fires. We estimate to open in March/April 2024.
News: What do you think of the arrival of the Michelin Guide?
Brañas: I love it. It adds up to a lot, it sets standards and demands. I’m not very clear about the conditions or objectives, I worked in several starred restaurants, and there are many things I like about that philosophy and others perhaps not so much. We will have to see what the standards will be. At Benedetta, for now, we do things well from scratch, from the raw materials and the product to the open kitchen so you can even see how it is cleaned. But I’m not worried about having a star, we are going to continue working as we always did. It is clear that there is going to be more competition among the new breed, and in that sense I think it adds up. I think it is a pride, a joy and an honor that they are in Argentina, they are recognizing us as a gourmet destination.
News: Are you interested in fame and being recognized? He was in “Argentine Cooks”…
Brañas: Yes, I was there for almost two years. But it was by chance, I am a good friend of Ximena Sáenz and on one of my trips to Switzerland she invited me to the program to tell what she had done. I was a guest and I loved her, I had a good time. I’m not looking to return to TV, but if they offer me something tomorrow, I’ll enjoy it. In “Cocineros…” the fun thing was that it happened live, very in the moment. I stopped going due to work and schedule complications, but I always come back as a guest. I’ve done more visual things, for a gas company, and in Switzerland we made a short film for the restaurant. I enjoy. I think when people know what you do, it helps your business. So it’s always good to communicate.
News: After what you learned outside, what are you like as a boss here?
Brañas: I don’t apply it 100%, but there are things that do. I am very strict in cleanliness, hygiene, safety, the quality of raw materials, the demands of suppliers, and the schedule. If you come in at 8 and arrive at 8, you are late. In clothes, in presence. In a lot of things I am super military, because I think it is the only way to move forward, but I am more flexible in that I like to enhance the qualities of those who are on the team. I give the most creative the freedom to propose and play, the most organized I put in charge of shift changes and the sheets. But without equipment I couldn’t do everything I do, that’s why one of my strengths is putting them together.
News: Projects, ambitions, dreams?
Brañas: May Tierra del Fuego open, may my children grow up healthily in a difficult world. And that what I do goes hand in hand, that my projects coexist with family life. Speaking of teams, we also make an incredible one with Viole, who, being a sociologist with a postgraduate degree in communication, today works with me and also organizes this house of four boys. A lioness
