19 days agomitchell.rabinowitz
#LearningAboutWine #MitchellRabinowitz #AldosBrasserieArgentina #AldosRestaurante #AldoGraziani #BuenosAires #BuenosAiresRestaurants #ArgentineWine #VinoArgentino #GastronomiaArgentina
19 days agomitchell.rabinowitz
Part 5 A brasserie generally serves substantial meals in an informal restaurant setting, often over long hours, and Graziani adapted that format to Buenos Aires cooking. A wood-fired grill and clay oven became central to preparation. Beef empanadas baked in the oven, and the menu included grilled ribeye and beef ribs alongside chicken cooked over wood heat. The new wine list contained more than 300 Argentine selections, drawing from small independent producers as well as established wineries. The 2026 menu describes a five-rib portion that receives twelve hours of cooking before being finished on the grill. Tenderloin appears in two preparations: served with pepper sauce and potato gratin, or breaded and fried as a milanesa. Side dishes are ordered separately, including mashed potatoes and roasted peppers dressed with extra-virgin olive oil. For larger tables, the restaurant offers a whole rib rack or Segovian-style suckling pig with crisp skin, ordered at least 48 hours ahead for groups of four to eight. Pasta remains on the menu at Azopardo, including lasagna with meat sauce and spaghetti with tomato sauce and stracciatella, the soft mixture of shredded mozzarella and cream. Cheeses from La Suerte and Juan Grande are served alongside cured meats from Las Dinas. Desserts include flan with whipped cream and dulce de leche, as well as dark chocolate mousse with roasted hazelnuts. The pancakes filled with dulce de leche that appeared on the first Aldo’s menu in 2011 are also served at the new restaurant.
19 days agomitchell.rabinowitz
Part 4 By March 2024, the Palermo restaurant had expanded its service by the glass to more than 50 wines, with about 700 selections on the full list. Measures ranged from 75 milliliters to a quarter-liter, allowing a table to order small quantities of several wines over a meal. The selection included Semillón and Torrontés among the whites, with Bonarda and Garnacha available alongside more familiar red varieties. Mendoza supplied much of the list, and wines from Jujuy, Salta, San Juan, and Río Negro extended the geographical range. Sommeliers working in the dining room participated in the selection and explained the choices at the table. The cellar was named for wine journalist Elisabeth Checa. In 2026, Graziani closed the Palermo premises and opened Aldo’s Brasserie Argentina at Azopardo 780, near Puerto Madero and a short distance from the area where his first restaurant had operated. The opportunity came through an agreement with Almarena, whose Madero Urbano property offered apartments with hotel services in affiliation with Meliá. Graziani had already opened Áncora at Almarena Puerto Retiro in May 2025. At Azopardo, he could serve hotel guests as well as customers from the surrounding offices and residential buildings. The premises provided space for a dining room and bar, outdoor seating, an underground wine cellar, and private events upstairs. Breakfast service extended the working day beyond lunch and dinner.
19 days agomitchell.rabinowitz
Part 3 Graziani also opened wine bars in the downtown Torre Bellini and on República Árabe Siria in Palermo. Beneath the original Aldo’s, he opened the jazz club Bebop. During the pandemic, both the Moreno restaurant and that location of Bebop closed permanently. Graziani concentrated restaurant operations in Palermo, where the staff moved the wine shop onto the terrace and delivered bottles and prepared dishes. When restrictions permitted, they served meals outdoors. In an August 2021 interview, he reported that the business had retained two Palermo locations and was developing online wine sales. Graziani had settled on an Italian-American direction for the restaurant’s cooking, working with chef Leo Azulay within the group. Homemade pasta and risotto were regular parts of the menu, alongside meat dishes prepared to accompany the wine selection. For the tenth-anniversary meal in 2021, the kitchen served dumplings made with potato and borage, a leafy herb, in mushroom broth with pecorino, a sheep’s-milk cheese. Braised lamb with carrots and spinach followed. Each course had an assigned wine, and the restaurant’s list still contained approximately 500 selections.
19 days agomitchell.rabinowitz
Part 2 At Aldo’s, Graziani and a team of sommeliers tasted wines without seeing their labels and chose approximately 500 for the opening list. The resulting wine menu ran to 42 pages, and bottles were sold at the same price whether consumed with a meal or purchased to take home. Wine shelving covered the walls of two dining rooms connected by a cocktail bar. Juan Santa Cruz, one of Graziani’s partners, designed the interior, and customers could enter to buy wine, have coffee, or sit down for lunch or dinner. The opening menu included lamb braised in red wine, with side dishes ordered separately, and pancakes filled with dulce de leche, the thick confection made by slowly cooking sweetened milk. A second restaurant opened at Arévalo 2032 in Palermo in late 2017. White wine shelves and a lacquered wooden bar repeated features of the original premises, while a terrace provided outdoor seating. The cellar held about 3,000 bottles across roughly 600 selections. Its range included Semillón from the Uco Valley in Mendoza and Pinot Noir from Río Negro in Patagonia, with wines available by the glass or bottle and for purchase to take home. Chef Maximiliano Matsumoto prepared the Palermo menu, which included ricotta gnocchi, pan-cooked fish, and ribeye. The kitchen sourced cheeses from producers including La Suerte and Juan Grande, and La Anunciación supplied tomatoes grown around La Plata.
19 days agomitchell.rabinowitz
Part 1 Aldo’s: Fifteen Years of Wine and Restaurants in Buenos Aires When Aldo Graziani opened his first restaurant on Calle Moreno in 2011, part of the dining room was still unfinished. He had exhausted the money available for the work, so he hung a curtain across the incomplete section and began serving customers in the space he could use. Revenue from those early meals paid for the remaining construction. The premises occupied the ground floor of the Hotel Moreno, where another restaurant had previously operated. Graziani began working in restaurants as a teenager alongside his mother. They operated a small bar and later ran Tercer Tiempo near Plaza Serrano, when that part of Palermo still had relatively few places to eat and drink. After the family business closed, Graziani found work at Cholila, Francis Mallmann’s restaurant in Puerto Madero. He began with basic service duties and gradually gained access to the dining room, where he became interested in the people responsible for selecting and serving wine. At Gran Bar Danzón, he took on management and wine responsibilities while studying at the Escuela Argentina de Sommeliers, graduating in its first class. He subsequently helped lead the opening and management of Casa Cruz with Germán Martitegui and Juan Santa Cruz, remaining for four years, before overseeing the Faena Hotel’s wine program from 2007 to 2010.
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