Fernando Rivarola

Coming Up

Since 2008, El Baqueano has been the main site for Fernando Rivarola’s work as chef-owner: a kitchen where Argentine ingredients, regional sourcing, and a contemporary frame are held together without excess. The restaurant does not read as a fixed menu so much as a working method, with Rivarola using the room to test how place, memory, and ingredient knowledge can be translated into a precise dining format. In 2013, Cocina SIN Fronteras extended that method as a separate platform, giving his ideas about exchange and flavor a form that could move beyond a single address.

Where They Are Now

The sourcing brief is stated without ornament: “The restaurant is dedicated to contemporary native Argentine cuisine, working with small local producers, and visiting collectors and fishermen in all ecoregions of the country.” For El Baqueano, that is not a side note to the cooking; it is the structure that the cooking stands on. Producers, collectors, fishermen, and ecoregions are all part of the same operating language, which gives the restaurant a clear geographical and material logic. Rivarola’s work here is built on contact with those sources and on the translation of that range into a contemporary kitchen. The named dishes show how that sourcing language becomes plate form. At El Baqueano in Salta, llama carpaccio with three-coloured quinoa was highlighted, while falso bife de chorizo was described as a deceptive yet eye-catching fish dish. In Buenos Aires, llama crudo has been served with three-colored quinoa, crunchy amaranto, and an ají panca emulsion; Beef Crudo, Quinoa, Amaranth is also part of the signature work. Across those dishes, the kitchen keeps linking technique to territory, with each plate carrying a specific ingredient register from the country’s different landscapes.

In Their Words “The restaurant is dedicated to contemporary native Argentine cuisine, working with small local producers, and visiting collectors and fishermen in all ecoregions of the country.” “In the year of 2008 “El Baqueano” was born- Indigenous Contemporary Cooking -, after a deep search over the indigenous and endemic identity of the Argentinian biomes.”