Photo taken using Canon PowerShot SD850 IS
La Chacra is a parrilla located in the Retiro neighborhood near Av. 9 de Julio. I went here based on a recommendation by my friend who’d eaten here several times on his vacation to Buenos Aires. He told me that this place had the best chimichurri he’d ever tasted and that I needed to order their “Bife La Chacra”. I did both things and I left disappointed, very disappointed. In short, this place is an over-priced tourist trap.
La Chacra is impressive when it comes to the portions as they don’t skimp at all. However, when you do quantity vs. quality, what will you choose? In addition, value plays an important part in my overall impression of a restaurant. Because of it’s location near Av. 9 de Julio and the hotels, naturally the prices will be higher and the clientele will be tourists. As with Cabaña Las Lilas, I’m sure I could’ve gotten a equally good steak for about a third of the price. The Bife La Chacra costs 63 pesos and is a large piece of meat, enough for two, but does not set itself apart from other steaks. However, the chimichurri was the biggest letdown. My friend swore this was the best chimichurri he’s ever had but I just thought it to be a big mess of oregano and oil with some garlic and red pepper mixed in. I thought that the mixture of ingredients were not balanced correctly. I’ll just say that immediately after returning back to my apartment I made it a point to email my friend to tell him of my overall disappointment of La Chacra.
Needless to say I will not go back here. Dinner for two with a half-bottle of wine but no empanadas was 142 pesos. I think I’ve explored enough of the city to find parrillas that are of better value and not tourist traps. The restaurant was not crowded but the customers that were there were probably 90% tourists. Oh, and I forgot to mention, the service was slow even with the lack of crowd. La Chacra ranks towards the bottom of parrilla experiences based on the lack of value and the disappointment in chimichurri.
Despite what this says, we will return at least once more to check and see if the problems on the last trip were because we were there during the high season.
We visit here on our trips to BA. Normally, we are the only Americans in the place. There were a few others this last time.
The steak quality was not as good as previous visits. The prices have also gone up about 200% since the previous visit. It is our experience that, contrary to the US custom in nice steak places, meat is not normally aged in Argentina - even at the good steak places. The Bife La Chacra was not as good a quality of cut this time.
The rest of the food was great as in the past. The local wine options were considerably more expensive than in prior visits. I am guessing that the increases in the presence of American tourist has had an impact. The menus had far more English on them than prior visits here and in other places we went.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 6:53 pm