There is something that the world’s great kitchens share, beyond geopolitical borders, time zones and language barriers: the conviction that a good ingredient, when treated with the respect it deserves, does not need a passport. This certainty explains why The Argentine gastronomic scene has become one of the most interesting laboratories on the planet for the dialogue between oriental sensibility and Latin American culinary identity.. This is not a passing fad or an experiment for palates eager for novelty, but rather the natural consequence of a culture that has always known that its identity is built in the encounter with the other.
Buenos Aires and the great gastronomic centers of the interior are consolidated as avant-garde spaces where the Buenos Aires grill, Japanese precision, Mediterranean fires and Korean fermentation have stopped being “exotic” and have become complicit. In this new culinary map, the roast is dressed in miso, the lamb is embraced by kimchi and the Andean calapurca is fused with ramen. It is a trend that shows that, at the table, dialogue is the only border worth crossing.
Maki Maki: The Altiplano in the Palace
The most recent and sophisticated example of this trend was “Maki Maki”, a “four-handed” meeting that transformed the tables of Dashi Palacio Alcorta into an unprecedented point of contact between the aridity of the Punathe wealth of the Argentine Northwest (NOA) and the immensity of the Pacific Ocean. The name chosen for the event is, in itself, a game of linguistic mirrors that defines the essence of collaborative gastronomy: while in Japanese “Maki” refers to the technical act of rolling – the central axis of sushi -, in the Quechua language it means “hands”. Under this premise of manual, circular and ancestral work, the experience avoided the usual format of fusion dinners – where each cook presents his dishes separately in an interspersed manner – and opted for a total amalgamation of knowledge in each of the preparations.
As part of its 25th anniversary, the emblematic Nikkei cuisine restaurant received the chef from Jujuy Flor Rodríguez (from El Nuevo Progreso, in Tilcara), who worked closely with hosts Roberto Nishida and Carina Ramírez. Together they designed a six-course menu where the ingredients from the Quebrada de Humahuaca were the absolute protagonists of a new technical narrative where Japanese precision was put at the service of the Andean land. One of the highest points was an unexpected synthesis: a trout calapurca turned into ramen. The calapurca, that Andean tradition where the broth is heated by introducing a red-hot volcanic stone into the potwas fused with the density of Japanese tonkotsu, kombu seaweed and chachacoma oil, a medicinal herb from the Puna.
When asked about this mixture, chef Roberto Nishida explains: “We were surprised with Flor to discover that there are very similar ancestral customs between Japanese and Andean culture in infusions, ferments and respect for natural flavors. In Japan, almost 80% of what comes from the sea is dried, while in Jujuy they do the same with charqui or the fruits of their land to enhance the flavor. We manage to combine these products with our plating, maintaining a perfect balance of textures, harmony and colors. This is Endless Gastronomy.”
This shared dehydration technique was reflected in an octopus jerky with edamame emulsion, Andean papines, Japanese pickles and broad beans. The menu continued with purple corn tamales stuffed with braised llama with bonito fish furikake, and a closing that included a mochi with sweet cayote and a goat cheese cake with caramelized nori and sake figs.
The language of embers
If the Andean-Japanese encounter is sustained in the memory of the land, the relationship between the classic Argentine grill and Japanese cuisine is defined through fire and precision. The grill of our country has its own philosophy: the management of slow time and the ember as the only mediator between the animal and the dish. It is a cuisine of intuition and millimeter precision that is more related to Japanese purism than it seems at first glance.
Maximiliano Matsumoto knows this well. As a Nikkei from Buenos Aires, he thinks of his dishes with the economy of means of the Japanese tradition, but he grew up watching grills. When his gaze falls on the cuts of a local emblem like La Cabrerayour goal is to expand your horizon. In his hands, the beef eye appears like the soul of some gnocchi accompanied by a Malbec teriyaki reduction, where the Italian technique works as a vehicle and the oriental reduction as the bridge that unites both worlds. The highest point is consolidated in the center roast served with char siu, endive kimchi and miso emulsion, revealing that the smoke of the native ember and the saline depth of the miso are distant relatives that have just been recognized.
This dialogue becomes more radical when it collides with the proposal of Javier Rodríguez, from El Papagayo in Córdoba. Rodríguez uses fire and the wood-burning oven as his only tools. When Nikkei finesse in the hands of Cindy Higa, from Osaka, comes across this fire from within, the blade and the ember are no longer opposites. The Córdoban fire gives it a dark and smoky layer that no Asian interior kitchen could reproduce. It is there where yuzu kosho and Andean corn coexist, and where shoyu and ají panca discover that they are, simply, two different ways of naming the same sensation: umami.
Fermentation: the universal language of time
If fire is the language of the present, fermentation is the language of time and silent transformation. Of all the possible encounters, perhaps the most profound is this one, because all civilizations have fermented to preserve their food; The only thing that changes is the container and the input.
Chef Pablo Park approaches Korean fermentation like someone returning to a memory from his childhood. Its cuisine is based on ancestral traditions—kimchi, shikhye—and brings them to the present to cross them with the pantry of Fernando Rivarola in El Baqueano, who provides the treasures of Argentine territory: wild chilto, carob, yista and tobacco from the Northwest.
When braised lamb meets the lively power of Korean ferments, a universal truth is discovered: the patience required by slow Creole heat is the same as that required by Asian maturation. Even in the desserts, where shikhye (sweet fermented rice drink) is fused with sheep’s milk and carob, there is a declaration of principles: that memory, when shared, produces unprecedented flavors that neither culture could have imagined separately.
Current Argentine gastronomy is not the scene of these encounters due to cosmopolitan chance; Our country is one of the few places in the world where this mix has a historical and emotional meaning.
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