The cuisine of Buenos Aires is a cuisine of immigrants, of those who got off the ships, especially Italians and Spaniards, and today, a century or so later, of many other immigrants: Peruvians, Venezuelans, Colombians, Senegalese, Chinese, and Japanese among others. The new generations of gastronomicians grew up crossed by all these influences, and also with much less prejudice about what our cuisine should be. This is how today it is possible to find a restaurant like Santa Inés, in the heart of the Paternal neighborhood of Buenos Aires.
His kitchen is impossible to pigeonhole. Its owner, the histrionic and talented Jazmín Marturet, loves to imagine what grandmothers prepare anywhere in the world, take their recipes, and combine them with each other without censoring herself. One example among many (the letter changes every waning and waxing moon – nothing mystical behind this idea, just a MN Santa Inés. Avalos 360, La Paternal. 11 5848-6888. Tuesday to Sunday, 12:30 pm. Saturdays, Sundays and holidays by reservation. @mnsantaines. Price: $2,500. A deliciously creative way to switch up every 15 days or so) is a dish like Tex Mex, which has pasta (Italy), tempura brotola (Japan), and a large quantity of typical mexican ingredients: corn, beans, jalapeños, lime, cilantro, fried tortillas, lime zest, smoked tajine. Pasta is one of Jasmine’s specialties but you can serve it as in the dish just described or with a classic frutti di mare sauce. No rules.
The cuisine is unprejudiced, unconventional, eclectic and always delicious. The dishes speak for themselves: kofte (“Turkish meatballs”) with bulgur wheat, Creole lettuce and beets; corn cachapa (a kind of arepa venezonala) with shredded meat and spicy sour cream; and salad of different greens with raw ham, roasted peaches, walnuts, celery, cranberries and orange. For dessert there is never a lack of pavlova with seasonal fruits.
The place agrees with the philosophy of the house. It is an old neighborhood bakery whose physiognomy was preserved, set in a picturesque way, with family crockery, various objects, works by artists from the neighborhood, etc. The dishes are abundant and the prices are very friendly.
