Best Carne Restaurants

[adelaide-rob]

Hi All,

Suggestions for great Meat Restaurants

Thanks!

 

[LeroyBrown]

If you ask 5 different Argentines this you'll get 5 different answers, so there isn't really a best, however my favorite is Don Julio in Palermo. La Hormiga is high quality too. If you want the best value for the money, go to Estilo Campo in Puerto Madero, still world class quality but often half the price as the more famous ones. Many though are just overpriced tourist traps, stay away from ones like Cabana Las Lilas. I've found you can judge general overall quality by testing their chimichuri, so I normally ask to try it first to see if it's up to code when trying a new place. Bad chimichuri will normally mean poorly prepared meat, if they can get a complicated sauce like chimichuri right though it means they're educated meat men. When purchasing more exotic beefs like Kobe I would also recommend to ask to see the raw meat first to verify authenticity and ask about it's source, I've seen them passing off normal meat as Kobe before.

Outside of the meat the food in Argentina is horrible though.

 

[Neil]

Is pretty fair in its restaurant ratings!

 

[Ries]

I am a fan of La Carniceria. I like La Choza. I am quite partial to the sandwich at La Rambla. Parilla Pena is reliable old school. Doble AA, a cheap neighborhood dive, is great. and there are a good dozen mid range parilla's I hit if I am in the neigborhood that are quite good, all over town. Las Lilas and La Cabrera are, indeed, touristy and expensive, but usually, actually pretty good.

I couldnt disagree more that "the food in Argentina is horrible".
Just this week, I had an amazing all vegetarian meal at Gran Dabang.
A really Killer Bife at Proper, along with 4 gourmet tapas style dishes there that were non-meat and excellent, including a broccoli and calamari dish that was great.
I had a japanese meal last night at Syntesis, featuring tofu, karague chicken, miso soup, and gyoza that was authentic, reasonably priced, and very good.
The bao at Xaio Long Bao is as good as you will find in most european and US cities- not as good as in china or taiwan, but very good.

I could go on- there are lots of new fusion and gourmet restaurants in BA that are doing very good non-meat food.
Been meaning to hit Narda, for example.

 

[Daniel82]

Cabaña Las Lilas is quite good, it’s overwhelmingly expensive so it’s viewed by Argentineans as ‘for tourists’ because of the price points mostly, but it’s an experience in and of itself. It’s actually part of a Brazilian company called Rubyat which is known worldwide for their meat restaurants (priced accordingly of course)

If you want an authentic and elegant family style place I recommend Aires Criollos on Avenida Santa Fe and calllao, it’s where many locals go for power lunches (they have a reasonably priced executive menu) and dinners and the quality is excellent for the price. It’s actually one of the top 5 now in Trip Advisor.

Cabrera is good too but they’ve gone the way of Las Lilas and what used to be a ‘down home’ parrilla have now become more gentrified in everything, maybe due to the fact that they now have locations in Dubai for example LOL

I also enjoy El Mirasol (the classic one in the Recova) and Happening in Puerto Madero

Aires Criollos would be the most bang for your buck however.

 

[Churchill]

If you ask 5 different Argentines this you'll get 5 different answers, so there isn't really a best, however my favorite is Don Julio in Palermo. La Hormiga is high quality too. If you want the best value for the money, go to Estilo Campo in Puerto Madero, still world class quality but often half the price as the more famous ones. Many though are just overpriced tourist traps, stay away from ones like Cabana Las Lilas. I've found you can judge general overall quality by testing their chimichuri, so I normally ask to try it first to see if it's up to code when trying a new place. Bad chimichuri will normally mean poorly prepared meat, if they can get a complicated sauce like chimichuri right though it means they're educated meat men. When purchasing more exotic beefs like Kobe I would also recommend to ask to see the raw meat first to verify authenticity and ask about it's source, I've seen them passing off normal meat as Kobe before.

Outside of the meat the food in Argentina is horrible though.

What? You go to a restaurant and ask to try their chimichurri before making your order? At what point do you do this? Once you've been seated? As soon as you walk through the door at the counter? What if its not to your liking? You just leave? Sounds like you're a bundle of fun to eat out with. Odd.

 

[sts7049]

i think cabana las lilas is excellent, but it is expensive. don julio is excellent as well and probably 1/3 the price.

 

[earlyretirement]

My favorite is Don Julio but the lines are crazy so make sure you have a reservation.

 

[perry]

I love Don Julio but the best steak in the city is at the very exclusive Nuestro Secreto restaurant in four seasons hotel. Their grass fed lomo de bife you can cut with a fork and the flavour is similar to kobe but at 20 percent of the price.

 

[LeroyBrown]

What? You go to a restaurant and ask to try their chimichurri before making your order? At what point do you do this? Once you've been seated? As soon as you walk through the door at the counter? What if its not to your liking? You just leave? Sounds like you're a bundle of fun to eat out with. Odd.

Yes, of course. When I'm going to a place that's "fine dining" or "exclusive" I don't want to have to deal with low quality, 3rd world bullshit. Especially when entertaining, if we're seated by a grumpy 60 year old male, then shown a few pieces of hard, store bought bread with garbage "french bread" that's bought from the panaderia around the corner, with half ass criollo & vinegary chimichuri sauce, we'll smile, shake our heads no and leave. That's exactly what's happened at Cabanas Las Lilas (except add in tables full of screaming, smoking Asians, not the type of experience I'm after personally but to each their own).

The dining experience at Don Julio is superior (while none of these places are expensive, Don Julio a T Bone is about 35-40 dollar if I remember right, Las Lilas probably around 45), you're seated by a smiling young lady, attended to by a professional meat connoisseur, then given freshly chopped chimichuri with a fresh baked pan del campo from the same day, before enjoying world class meat.

I do stick to my statement that apart from meat Argentine food is horrible, Argentine diet is vast majority packaged, processed & refined foods (pizzas, pastas, breads, etc), lot's of microwaving, reheating and all around low quality and extremely unhealthy. Hence why Argentina is among the countries with higher cancer rates in the world. Argentine "breakfasts" are joke, various combinations of processed bread, water & refined sugar. In most (except the north) of the country fresh fruit and produce is difficult to get, and in all of the country there is 0 emphasis on natural, organic, non GMO diets. The bad access to high quality food was major determining factor in our decision not to retire in Argentina, and God forbid, the economic situation could make this significantly worse.