Elena

Elena is the steak restaurant of the Four Seasons Hotel Buenos Aires, on Posadas in the Recoleta district. Its kitchen centers on the parrilla grill and on beef aged in its own chambers.

Juan Gaffuri, executive chef and food and beverage director of the hotel, has shaped the menu for well over a decade. He describes his cooking as Buenos Aires food with Italian and Spanish roots, built around meat and familiar flavors. In its first years Elena bought younger, lighter grain-fed animals; the kitchen later turned back to heavier, older cattle, grass-fed Holstein and large Angus, to bring out a deeper beef flavor.

Aging is done in the open. Glass chambers in the room hold the cuts for weeks or months before they reach the grill, wagyu among them, and the aging is checked by laboratory tests. From the parrilla come T-bones, ojo de bife and bife de chorizo. A milanesa cut from dry-aged ribeye gives the city's everyday breaded cutlet a luxury form, and the carpaccio is sliced from a heavy steer. Galician-style octopus is Gaffuri's most personal dish, a memory of the neighborhood restaurant where his grandmother took him as a boy.

The kitchen also cures its own charcuterie, such as salami and a mortadella with walnuts, served with house focaccia and pickles. Vegetable sides follow regional Argentine recipes, from roast pumpkin with mint chutney to toasted cauliflower with pistachio and dill. A tasting route called El Recorrido brings small portions for tables of two and ends with a Balcarce cake. The two-floor room recalls the old houses of San Telmo, with fabric-covered walls, leather chairs and an open kitchen. Elena appears in the Michelin Guide and on the World's 101 Best Steak Restaurants list.