From the rebellion of being a wild and rocker boy in Germania, a town in the province of Buenos Aires, to discipline in Buenos Aires kitchens. Sebastián Iraola He met the worst part of the night and the world of gastronomy, but managed to get out of that darkness and today is in charge of more than ten restaurants as an advisor. His last challenge was to build the letter and the team of Idyllin Saavedra, who had the complexity of seeking to be a “fine dying”, but in a Buenos Aires neighborhood, with dishes that can enchant all diners.
News: Up to what age did you live in Germania?
Sebastián Iraola: Until 13. Germania is a rural area, they are all countrymen, my old woman made me listen to rock, there began the problem (laughs). I wanted to leave my hair long, at the germania school it is not allowed to wear long hair. I said that I liked the iron and sent me to an industrial school in Junín. It was a pupil school, 130 kilometers from Germania. It seemed like a military regime. I was two months and I made myself. I ended up living with a grandmother, a sister of my grandfather, single. And there I learned to eat, because in my house my mother never knew how to cook. I learned to cook, take care of plants, to weave, to embroider. I grew up with women, so I don’t know how to do men’s things.
News: What are the dishes that started eating and cooking?
Iraola: I started eating things that I had never eaten, from spinach fritters, fish, risottos. I met new vegetables too. In my house in Germania we ate milanesas or stewed.
News: And when did you think it could be dedicated to the kitchen?
Iraola: That was in Junín. I played the very small battery and there I met boys that they liked rock, we put together a band, it started to do well. That accompanied an era of my revolt, of alcohol and drugs. My old woman told me that with this music I was not going to go anywhere, I had to decide and got into the kitchen, I didn’t know where I got, I passed Guatemala to Guatepeor (laughs). When I arrived in Buenos Aires to work in kitchens it was an lack of control. I took that life for 15 years.
News: Now it is quite fashionable to show the backstage of the kitchens in series, movies, how much there is myth and how much is it real?
Iraola: Everything is real. Drugs, alcohol, timba, prosture. I don’t know now, we are talking about the ’90s. I am clean, I do not take drugs, or alcohol, but it took me for two years of being saved. A cook who does not drink alcohol is very crazy. I was head of cooking at a restaurant in Palermo where the owner himself provided us with cocaine. I don’t know how it is now because I don’t pay attention to those things.
News: How is it at this stage?
Iraola: Recently, I live for my family, my lady and my two daughters, I sleep every night in my house, I wake up 6:30 in the morning for breakfast with them, and I can serve 12 restaurants.
News: How is the advisor’s work?
Iraola: They summon me from zero, we put together the team, we design the kitchen together, everything depends on what the client wants. I set up from a tapas bar to a still life in a basketball club. Now we are about to reopen beast in San Isidro. Since I’m lucid I can do what I want.
News: How do you see the gastronomic movement in Buenos Aires?
Iraola: Buenos Aires is the cradle of great professionals, there are great chefs, art is distilled. In Argentina there is a lot of art, there are people who do beautiful things, but there are also the Chantas.
News: How do they do in a country like ours, with economic fluctuations, to think about a letter?
Iraola: All the holy days I am looking at the invoice of what enters and I am dealing with the suppliers. You have to juggle. Or you get ahead of the possible increase, or play with seasonal products. The profitability in the restaurants is very low. You have very high fixed costs. If you have a 16% profitability, make yourself happy.
News: What is the occupation like?
Iraola: People go out. In Pandemia it was not known what was going to happen, but when they opened the doors of the premises they were detonated from people. We Argentines like to leave, eat outside, go to coffee. We are salotors. Even if we don’t have money. The schedule range of people who go out to eat is much wider than in other parts of the world, at 2 in the morning on Corrientes Street are open restaurants. We are unique.
News: Does the Argentine feed well?
Iraola: Most are children of immigrants, and no matter how much they came from postwar period, in their homes there was never a lack of good food. There you do not have a hypersaludable diet, but magic is made with three ingredients.
News: How was the Idilio letter to build?
Iraola: They asked me for something similar to Gardiner. But I did anything (laughs). I like to eat, basically, and I don’t like to follow gastronomy structures. I like to follow structures in the new life that I carry because if I do not carry them, I get out of my mind. But then the structures in gastronomy seem half bullshit: “The fish is eaten with white wine”, if you like red wine or beer, pedite. Here we mix France with the United States, I am putting together things. I look all the time of gastronomy. I live for this. In Idilio I tried to have two dishes that know him from three -year -old to the big ones: there is a milanese and an oven meat with potatoes.
News: What does a restaurant have to be considered good?
Iraola: The food has to be rich and the most homemade as possible. Do not wear dusty broths, ultra -processed, nothing pre -developed, which has not gone through the freezer. And the freshness of food. I try to use seasonal because it comes fresh, rich and cheap.
News: What is the most characteristic dish of the letter?
Iraola: The one I like most is a baked rice with squid ink, a channel, canned jalapeños and a lemon juice.
News: He was also in charge of a catering service, what are the differences with carrying out a kitchen in a restaurant?
Iraola: The catering expects, here you do not know. Today you can have 50 reservations and nobody comes. In catering you have those 50 diners that are already payments. A time before you have all the grid of all the events you are going to have every weekend. It all depends on managing logistics. It also has a containment laburo with the family of it organizes.
News: In the kitchen there must also be containment of the team.
Iraola: Today, 2025, the only way to have a stable team is to be a dad, confidant, friend and give confidence. Do not hold people with money. There are people who are very broken working in gastronomy. The insults are not going. At the time of orders there is tension, but what I ask is concentration. I do not let debates in the office. When that moment ends, if there was a cross, we talked, but yes or yes you have all to go happy. If you are working in my kitchen and for a week you learned anything, this is not your place, Andate. Here you have to come to learn. Whatever, life, kitchen.
News: At your home?
Iraola: Bit. My wife also works in gastronomy, but she usually cooks her. We arm the menu of the week. My daughters eat well. They have a good palate. My mother -in -law is a pastera. But they don’t want to know anything with working in gastronomy.
News: I know he has also worked for celebrities like Diego Maradona, what can he tell me about that?
Iraola: A cousin of mine worked for Diego Maradona, there was some link with him in the family. But I am not a cholulo. When I came to Buenos Aires I worked in catering, we did the catering for Polka, at that time they were “first”, champions “and” gasoline. ” I also cooked in politicians, judges. My only idol is the drummer of the parakeets.
News: Is there anything you need to do within cuisine?
Iraola: I am grateful. First for having been able to form a family, I spent it Heavy. I have fun with my work, they get paid for fun. The day I don’t have fun I don’t do it anymore. I never tire. I live for this.
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