María García Calvo Prefer margins. She is used to thinking from the backstage: imagine a letter, direct a photo shoot, polish the design of a brand or capture the essence of a gastronomic project to work on networks. That is why it is not surprising that the talk – and especially the photos – find it somewhat shy, as if the prominence is still oblivious. But as soon as he begins to tell his story, discomfort dissolves. “The food was always an act of love and encounter in my family,” he says, and condenses something of the engine that drives it today.
At 29, María is one of the three faces behind Lima and Norimõtotwo brands that created with their brothers (Santiago and Ramón, their twin) and that became referents of a new Buenos Aires cuisine: young, innovative, intuitive. What began as a homemade game – Sushi salads and sell them among friends – became a network of premises that grows without brake, with openings in Núñez, Pilar, Las Cañitas, Montevideo and even Miami. “We find it to believe how far we get. Sometimes we continue to see Lima as that small place in Pacheco,” he confesses. But the numbers and recognition do not lie: with Norimõto, they opened the first Hand Roll Bar in Buenos Aires and today lead a proposal that many try to replicate.
News: His first venture was with his brother, making Sushi salads. How did they occur to them?
María García Calvo: We always liked the fish, and when we were boys the sushi was nothing known. We began to make those salads to take them to universities and schools, I sold them to my faculty classmates. We did it in my house, we covered Mama’s pipes with rice … at one point we were out of hand, because they didn’t give us the times, but it was the first gastronomic experience. Later we learned that Sushi’s restaurant in the area where we lived closed, and we thought “is the moment.” We thought about doing something small, for Delivery and Take Away, but it was so much that we never arrived. I resigned from my work and it was La Moza, my brother, Ramón, El Buman, and my other brother, Santiago, the ATM. Thus Lima began. We just started delivery five months later, with the pandemic.
News: Did the arrival of the pandemic be so inexperienced?
García Calvo: Yes, but pandemic was what made us grow. It was terrible for most gastronomics, but ours was a product that you could not prepare at home, and that was our advantage. We had many orders and demand even further places, such as Pilar. We also enlarge the place, and in 2021 we came to open in Recoleta, at the Hub Buenos Aires hotel. In 2023 we opened in Pilar and this year in Las Cañitas. And in 2024 we also opened in Miami.
News: But the proposal is more than Sushi.
García Calvo: We always try to give it another focus. People who come to eat do not want to sit at a table, that the food arrives and leave. Today’s client knows a lot about gastronomy and seeks to learn. We always try to transmit passion and innovate, because if not, you stagnate. And something very important that I think characterized us was intuition. Having experience, many times we are guided by that. Mom so many times I couldn’t believe what we were doing … Thus arose, for example, Norimõto.
News: How was that creation?
García Calvo: Ramón loves going to see places for rent, even if he is not looking. And on a Saturday he invited me to see a place about Libertador, in Núñez. He was little and we loved it. We had just traveled to New York and we had seen a concept that here did not exist: the hand rolls. And we sign the place with that idea. We left there and we came to Lima to do tests, to see how we were going to work the rice, the algae. We open Norimõto in July 2022.
News: Norimõto is a much more agile service, the idea is a continuous rotation bar, had that had to explain that to the diner?
García Calvo: Yes. We are the first Hand Roll Bar in Buenos Aires, a concept that did not exist here, and that was also a challenge. Over the years we settle as pioneers. People understood, at such a level that we have nine bars today. In Buenos Aires we have six stores and two newer ones come, and we are opening in Montevideo and Miami. We also open a production plant from which we supply all the premises. That helps us standardize and make sure that the quality is what we want.
News: Have you copied them?
García Calvo: (laughs) I think in Norimõto yes. There are many places in hand roll that are opening. There is competition, but we support ourselves a lot on the path we are doing and the standards we are putting on, so it is not afraid. We want to continue opening premises as long as we can continue to provide that quality.
News: Have you sought investor partners or has been sustained over business?
García Calvo: For the third place, Lima Pilar, we associate with a friend. And all the time we have franchise proposals, but for the moment here in Buenos Aires we do not want. Maybe later let’s look for it to operate elsewhere. And in Norimõto we are with an investment group that entered last year. They have experience in gastronomy and advise us.
News: And that works for them, given all its path based on the intuition and complicity of brothers?
García Calvo: We learned over time, with every problem that arose. And when this group appeared, we did not understand why they were fixing us, because we somehow continue to see Lima as that small place in Pacheco. We are hard for us to believe everything we arrived, but the first thing they told us is that they trusted us for that tour. We find partners who trust that intuition.
News: They are a young group, how are they like bosses?
García Calvo: One of the challenges we had was that much of the team is bigger than us. We have chefs who work 40 years ago in gastronomy. But we have a human part that differentiates us. I care that they are happy working here. In fact, one of my problems when we started was that I became very encouraged with the team, and when they left my soul. The same with customer complaints, I was lousy every time one arrived. And I was professionalizing, because at first I had a bad time. But much of what we are is for the team and human quality. In gastronomy there is a lot of rotation, so we also work so that the team wants to stay.
News: It is a context of a lot of new premises, but also of many closures, even of restaurants praised by the Michelin guide. What is the key to staying?
García Calvo: I think the key to everything is experience. The quality of food and service as a whole. I have gone to some of the restaurants that closed and were crazy, incredible, but there are also costs that sometimes make it difficult to maintain, and in order not to lower the quality, it is better to close. We work to maintain quality and service.
News: The difference perhaps also lies in a faithful clientele, which returns and does not come once because they are “fashionable.” Do you think they have succeeded?
García Calvo: Yes, we have our usual customers who are even related to young men. The famous “The usual?” And for them we also try to innovate: we make events with them, we invite you to the changes of cards, we give them participation.
News: Personally, where will you eat when it goes out?
García Calvo: Even if you don’t believe it, I love the oriental. Open a place of Sushi and I am the first to go. At the same time, I love the kitchen, and if on Friday night I have to choose between leaving or staying at home, I prefer to invite friends and cook. It’s like my therapy. And if I go out, I like to go to new places. If not, I also go to Kansas, which never fails and is a great example of what good service is.
News: And in those outputs try to have the awake eye for the trend and innovation potential?
García Calvo: All the time. I feel in a restaurant and see everything. The service, how long it takes for food, if the dish stained stained, cached, broken, if they brought me councils … and I love it, because in those things I realize the importance of the details.
News: And what is coming in the García Calvo universe?
García Calvo: We are with this Lima project in Las Cañitas, while in Norimõto the idea is to continue opening. Take Buenos Aires everywhere. And always as a family. And as for personal project, I die for going to Japan. It is my dream in the short term.
