Dan P.
Yelp
I've been to Chila once before, almost exactly five years ago. I liked the food quite a bit (with some minor faults), thought it was way too expensive for the portion sizes. At the time, though I didn't go for the tasting menu, if you'd done the full six course menu with paired wines, gotten a bottle of water, paid the cubierto and added a 10% tip, you'd have come in at 726 pesos, which with the exchange rate at the time came in at roughly $166. For BA, that was borderline outrageous. The "same" menu, now a seven course one, with two different options for wine pairings, if you go full tilt, add in that bottle of water (now 70 pesos), and tip, will come in at 2937 pesos, which with today's exchange rate means around $189, so not a huge change by international standards, but still making it one of the most expensive meals in Argentina.
Now, in the five years, Chila ended up on the Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants list, coming in at #35 last year, a drop from #21 in both 2015 and 2014, and #28 in 2013. And then, at the beginning of this year, the chef who made the name for the place, Soledad Nardelli, up and left. The new chef, who'd been her "right hand man" for several years, is Pedro Staurino Bargero, who has a pretty decent pedigree, having worked his way up through the kitchens of La Bourgogne in Punta del Este, D.O.M. in Sao Paolo, Mirazur in Provence, and David Toutain in Paris.
I'm not going to go through each individual dish, as they change constantly anyway. Of note off the bat, far less "Spanish" in style than it used to be. But the meal starts with a couple of amuses bouche, and then proceeds through seven planned courses, plus a "pre-dessert" palate cleanser. Not a misstep in the bunch, all completely delicious. All still quite small, as I noted in my original review, and honestly I could have easily eaten quite a few more (I could compare this to similar sized courses at my spectacular meal at Nerua last year, which was 21 courses, with wine pairings, for a roughly 50% higher tab, which was actually filling, or hey, if you want to stay in Latin America, Central, which has been #1 on the Latin American list for a couple of years running and actually makes it onto the world's best list at #4, charges little more than Chila for a 17 course menu).
Service was excellent, only one minor flaw - after the first course or two I was asked if I wanted more bread, I declined, but they left the bread plate, complete with crumbs, and the selection of butter, oil, and salt, on the table through the whole meal, right through the dessert. That makes no sense to me.
Setting that aside, I'm going to come back to pricing, because it's the only real fly in the ointment. Given the options of a standard or premium priced wine pairing, respectively costing 500 and 800 pesos for 7 wines plus a welcome cocktail shot, I had high hopes for the latter. Instead, the level of wines in the premium pairing were very good quality, but certainly not the level I expected.
Given the particular wines served, it basically meant that one tasting pour of about 1 1/2 ounces pays them for the full wholesale cost of the bottle, and they're getting 15 or so pours per bottle. It also means that by the end of the meal you've had only about 10-12 ounces of wine, less than half a bottle, almost double the retail price of the full bottles. It's actually cheaper to order a couple of wines by the glass of your own choosing (though I don't know the size of the pour on those).
So, overall... love the room and the ambiance. Service is, while not impeccable, excellent. The food is beautifully presented and delicious, albeit too small of portions. The wine pairing, particularly for the premium pairing, needs to have its game upped (I hesitate to even wonder what the wines served at the regular level for 500 pesos are). The price is, in my view, too expensive for what you get quantity-wise in both food and wine, in particular for Buenos Aires. Still, just for the quality and experience, I'd recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind paying the freight.
.jpg "Chila by Courtesy Chila")
