Balconies in San Telmo, Buenos Aires.
We didn’t know what to expect with a place like Patagonia. It may have been an odd choice to head to the Southern Patagonian Ice Field at the start of winter, but we didn’t care. We wanted to see Patagonia and we had two weeks of vacation to do it.
Fourteen hours of air travel took us from New York City to Buenos Aires, where we decided to spend one night catching our breaths. Kelly had heard about a “secret” restaurant while buying maps at Longitude Books in New York City. The Map Store Guy had just returned from a trip to Buenos Aires and was so excited about it that he pulled out his digital camera and showed her some of the photographs.
Almacén Secreto turned out to be someone’s backyard patio with a few scattered tables in the trendy Palermo neighborhood. Our surroundings included scattered candles, chopped firewood and ivy scaling the apartment walls. The “restaurant” was only open a couple of days a week and the menu was whatever the hosts decided to cook that night. If I was going to ever open my own restaurant, this would be how I’d do it.
The un-suspicious entrance to Almacen Secreto.
I had a very good locro de cordero, a clay pot stew filled with chunks of tender lamb, baby potatoes and carrots, topped with the slightest hint of herbs. It reminded me of a bone marrow and potatoes stew I once had in Montmartre, Paris — both had a thin stew base and minimal spices — and already the two cities were drawing comparisons in my mind.
Not bad for our first meal, I thought. It dawned on me then just how good (er, well) I was going to eat in Argentina.
