Is he gastronomic award most important that is delivered in Argentina and rewards the best chefs and their projects, based on criteria such as sustainability, the relationship with the environment, identity and innovation. Its about Prix Baron B – Edition Cuisinewhich is now in its fifth edition and which each year has a jury particularly suitable to interpret the task of local chefs: Mauro Colagreco, Pablo Rivero and Martín Molteni. He joined this luxury team in 2023 Manoella Buffaranative of Brazil and chosen in 2022 as the best female chef in the world.
This year the call broke its own record: 100 projects, coming from all geographies of the country, were presented for the award. From there, 3 finalists emerged whose ideas, condensed into a single dish, were presented last few days at the Alvear Hotel, before 100 guests and in front of the members of the jury.
The winning project was “Anima”a restaurant created in 2018 by Emanuel Yañez García and Florencia Lafalla. It is a small cabin located 18 km. from the center of Barilochein the middle of the forest El Trébol natural reserve, in the Circuito Chico area.
“The Ánima project achieved a balance in every sense between the place where they are, family and profession. Furthermore, its level of gastronomy is very high. Those things were what tipped the balance at the time of the election,” said Mauro Colagreco regarding the cuisine of Yañez García y Lafalla. As part of the prize, the winners will complete an internship at the famous Colagreco restaurant in France, Mirazur, three Michelin stars. In addition, they received the amount of one million pesos as a reward and a gold-plated cork made by the goldsmith Juan Carlos Pallarols.
Agustín Kuran with the “Amasijo” project from Santiago del Estero and Enrique Sobral with “Bajo Llave 929” from Concepción del Uruguay, were the other finalists. They received as a prize the sum of 550,000 pesos and a silver-plated cork, also the work of Pallarols. (see box).
The winners
Cured trout, smoked trout velouté, roe and pear, paired with Baron B Extra Brutwas the proposal of Emanuel Yañez García and Florencia Lafalla for the Prix, in the third opportunity in which they presented themselves for the award.
The most common ingredients in their cuisine are those common in the area of Patagonia where they are located: trout, lamb, pork and Ventimiglia cheeses. “Our premise was to create a restaurant for the people of Bariloche, not just for tourists. With a cuisine closely linked to our way of living gastronomy, with a lot of freedom to create the offer. It is a small place where there is no rush, so people can enjoy themselves during dinner. We achieved harmony and sustainability of our passion for cooking and life with our two children,” explained Emanuel Yañez Garcia at the award ceremony.
The couple met more than a decade ago studying and working in Mendoza (Emanuel is a native of Jáchal, San Juan and Florencia de San Rafael). In the beginning they were part of the 1884 team, the Escorihuela Gascón winery restaurant. “We both liked the restaurant life, but we were two youngsters and we still needed to learn a lot,” explains Emanuel.
They decided, then, to go live in Barcelona with the idea of finishing their training. Once there they began to knock on the doors of restaurants where they believed it was worth working to learn. That’s how they found Alkimia by Jordi Vilá. He offered Emanuel a job at a new restaurant he was opening. “We knew what we wanted because we had gone with a goal. And we had persistence. We offered to work without being paid, so that they would see us. Thus, the day they needed to fill a vacancy they could count on us,” says Florencia.
Around that time, the first intuition of what Anima could be appeared. A vision born from the professionalization of her work, from beginning to understand what they liked and what they didn’t to design their own story.
“When we had been in Spain for 5 years, working for the same people, the need arose to have some other experience. And we went to work 40 minutes from Barcelona and 40 from Andorra, in the Pre-Pyrenees, in a rural area. There was a hotel there with a restaurant, with a Michelin star. It was like a before and after, because we connected with a country lifestyle that we really liked. Professionally, it was a place that gave me security that I didn’t have. They gave me a place and that made me grow,” says Emanuel, who became head chef at that restaurant.
The birth of their first child, Fidel, convinced them of the need to return to Argentina. First they returned to Mendoza and then they went to Bariloche. After 9 months they found the place to set up their own project and within a year they were already opening the restaurant. “The apprenticeship in a rural restaurant in Spain taught us a way of working that we made our own. And we always thought of something small, easy to control, that we could both handle. When the pandemic arrived, the fact that it was a small project saved us,” explains Forencia.
Anima It has been open for 5 years and since Bruna, the couple’s second daughter, was born, they both understood that the challenge was to balance work and professional life. Today they are a team of 8 people, 4 in the kitchen and 3 in the living room, who serve 22 covers per day. The restaurant has a static menu and a very dynamic one, committed to the environment, with what can be found at the time. “We have designed a menu with very noble products that we have every day and that is what gives us regularity; Then, there is another letter, linked to seasonality,” explains Emanuel.
As for meat, they serve lamb and some game meats, such as hare. But they also have many dishes perfect for vegetarian palates.
Why did you enter Prix Baron B again and again? What does the award contribute to your project? “It helps to reinforce what one wants to say, to define a concept. Finding a plate that represents your project is very important. Since we first introduced ourselves until today, we have matured. We are the same, but we could have told it better.”
The other finalists
The Prix Baron B- Édition Cuisine highlights history and geographies throughout Argentina. Thus, the other two projects selected as finalists for the contest belong to very different areas of the country.
Agustín Kuran is from Santiago del Estero and is the chef of “Amasijo”, a venture that highlights the gastronomy of an emblematic northern province. At the award ceremony, the proposed dish was goat in three presentations – jam, pâté and jerky; spiced carrot millefeuille with herbs and fresh turmeric; foamed nopal cream and pickled nopalito; paired with Baron B Brut Nature.
Enrique “Quique” Sobral is the owner of “Bajo Llave 929”, a closed-door restaurant in Concepción del Uruguay, which only serves three tables at a time. With a menu representative of the province of Entre Ríos, its flavors include fishing, herbs and Mesopotamian fruits. His dish was a steamed tararira scented with citrus and yerba mate, accompanied with corn sauce, yatay and pecan soil, sweet potato foam, Marcela air and island honey, paired with Baron B Brut Rosé.
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