Francis Mallmann: leading a rebellion against harmony

Nation's Restaurant News, Feb 14, 2005 by Bret Thorn

Many cutting-edge chefs are preaching low-and-slow methods of cooking. Delicate treatment of proteins--braising them at low temperatures or even gently tumbling them in sous-vide--is the order of the day.

But that type of cooking is not for Francis Mallmann. The Argentine chef with restaurants in Florida and New Fork as well as Argentina and Uruguay talks about smashing meat, burning tomatoes and otherwise breaking culinary norms.

The chef opened his first restaurant when he was 18 years old in his hometown of Bariloche, in Argentina's Patagonia region. However; after realizing he didn't know what he was doing, he moved to France and worked with some of that country's greatest chefs during the experimental 1970s and 1980s, when Nouvelle Cuisine was all the rage.

Since then he has hosted television shows, written three cookbooks and branded a variety of cooking utensils and foodstuffs. Now he travels a lot, commuting between restaurants, and frequently returns to Argentina to look after his businesses, prepare large banquets for the country's president, or both. He says his classical French training continues to form the foundation of his cuisine, but he cooks in his own style, often highlighting the food of his native land. He calls his style "classical rebellion."

Title: chef-owner of 1884 Escorihuela in Mendoza, Argentina; Garzon in Garzon, Uruguay; Los Negros in Punta del Este, Uruguay; Mendoza in Miami; and Patagonia West in Westhampton Beach, N.Y.

Birth date: Jan. 14, 1956

Hometown: Bariloche, Argentina

Education: worked in the late 1970s and early 1980s in France with a variety of chefs, including Alain Chappelle, Claude Deligne, Raymond Oliver, Alain Senderens, Raymond Thuillier, Claude Troisgros and Roger Verge

Career highlights: winning the Grand Prix De L'art de la Cuisine from the Academic Gastronomique Internationale.

You've worked with quite a good list of chefs. How did you manage that?

I started with a little restaurant when I was 18 in Bariloche with a friend. Her father backed us, and it was very successful. It was a seasonal restaurant, with the skiers in the winter and the fishermen in the summer. But I realized I didn't know what I was doing. I was a very bad cook. So I thought I would hop on a plane, go to Paris and become a chef. It was a huge failure. I didn't speak French; no one would let me work for them. So I went back home and wrote letters to all the three-star French chefs, and many of them said, "Yes"; many said, "No": and some said, "Yes, but we'll just take you as a trainee, and you'll have to pay." The first restaurant that accepted me was Ledoyen, and after I was done there, the chef said, "Where would you like to go?" From there it was like a chain, and that's how I made contact with all of them.

What do you mean by calling your cuisine "classical rebellion"?

It's classical because I really believe in the fundamental roots of cooking, and the more I grow and the more I do, the more I feel comfortable with the simple things, which are the most difficult to do well, really. Even though I don't cook French cuisine now, I owe a lot to the French. I wouldn't have a blanquette de veau or anything like that on my menu, but all of those things inspire me. My cuisine is country cuisine. I don't make towers: I don't like to touch my food too much. And I really don't believe in harmony in cooking. I like to have fights in my mouth when I eat. I like the mix of cold and hot and crunchy and wet and acid and sweet. That makes you live and think when you eat.

What's a dish that you're really proud of?

There's a piece of a leg of lamb that I smash--I bang it, and then I coat it with mustard and thyme and I literally burn it on that side. I like to cook the meat in an infiernillo, which means "little hell." Basically, it means cooking between two fires--one on the bottom and one on the top. I'd really like to do that in New York, but I'm having a hard time getting permits. But in Garzon, the little restaurant in Uruguay I opened about a month ago, we do it. It's an Andean thing. The Incas used to do it in their camps--make small ovens out of pieces of earth that they'd cut in chunks, or they'd make two fires and cook between them.

Tell me more about how you cook the tomatoes.

I like to have the tomatoes very cold. I cut them in half and stuff them with oregano. I make cuts inside them and put red onions or garlic inside. Then I burn them on the flat side for about a minute and a half, so they're hot and crunchy on top and cold inside.

I've been very passionate for the past five years about this slightly burnt thing. Some clients don't understand it, but I really like it. Burnt tomatoes are delicious. The nice thing about that type of cooking is it loses its quality very fast. You have to cook it instantly and eat it instantly, too. I love that sort of timing.

Why?

It's more brutal than roasting meat and letting it rest. It's a taste that I like. I do beef that way, too. Maybe it's not very commercial of me, but I don't really like delicate things when I eat. I like to feel things. I don't get much from harmony. I mean, a nicely done white omelet is beautiful, but what I really want to be doing is standing with a stick in front of a fire.