AT La Cabrera Grillado and Bar, you’re chicken if you don’t try the chinchulines (grilled beef intestine), mollejas grilladas (grilled veal sweetbreads) or even the morcilla criolla (blood sausage pudding). There is chicken (grilled or barbecued), and there’s pork steak too, but these are in the periphery of a beef-centric menu. The restaurant is, after all, a typical Argentine parilla, a steakhouse, where the pleasures of the traditional Argentine asado (barbecue) is the inspiration and the raison d’être.
So there is ojo de bife (ribeye), ojo de bife madurado 12 d’ias (ribeye aged 12 days), bife de chorizo (striploin), ojo de bife con hueso (bone-in ribeye steak), entraña (skirt steak), asado del centro (prime short ribs) and special meat cuts vacio (flank steak) and cuadril (coulotte steak)—all grilled over woodfire on the huge brick-lined barbecue grill blazing away at one end of the restaurant. All the steaks are US Department of Agriculture prime grade (in lieu of meat grass-fed Argentine beef), and come with an assortment of hot and cold side dishes and condiments: chimichurri, the quintessential Argentine condiment; grilled corn, applesauce, squash with raisins, and the crowd favorite—subtly sweet caramelized garlic cloves, and humita, a warm velvety purée of sweet corn, pimiento and cheese.
Apart from a well-stocked bar (and a mean sangria, mostly Malbec and spiked with absinthe), Argentine wine is the drink of choice (naturally) with the Lagarde winery prominent on the winelist.
Lagarde wines are part of the equation at La Cabrera Grillado and Bar, as its importers, Carlo Lorenzana and Bob Tenchavez, are also the principals of the restaurant (along with a namesake, also Carlo Lorenzana of Lamill coffee fame). Most of the Lagarde portfolio is listed, from the easy-drinking Finca de los Andes Sauvignon Blanc and Malbec-Merlot, the house pours offered by the glass, to the Henry Gran Guarda, Lagarde’s flagship wine made only in the best vintages and cellar-worthy for at least two decades.
The top-tier Guarda Collectiones and Primeras Viñas range are equally as impressive, both capable of being cellared for eight to 10 years—the fruit for Guarda sourced from select vineyard parcels and the Primeras Viñas made from century-old vines. Altas Cumbres and Lagarde, the mid-range offerings, are fruit-driven, mainly single varietals from younger vines.
Malbec, Argentina’s signature grape, figures in the range as solo or part of a blend, and reaches its apex in the Henry Gran Guarda and Primeras Viñas wines. But while the Lagarde reds are top-billed, the whites are as noteworthy. The Torrontés grape is especially well-handled, coming from the best vineyards in Cafayate, Salta, making for lush, vibrant, aromatic whites. (The Altas Cumbres Torrontés is a house pour at La Cabrera, an introduction to the ripe stonefruit and floral intensity of the higher-end Lagarde Torrontés.) Viognier is also beautifully made, expressing the grape’s citrusy, tangy profile. There is also sparkling wine in both Charmat and traditional method styles (including the Lagarde Dolce) and dessert wine, the luscious, honeyed Henry Late-Harvest Moscato-Viognier.
So for lunch one day one at La Cabrera Grillado and Bar, I had the crisp, peachy Altas Cumbres Torrontés (available by the glass) with Chef Juan Barco’s crunchy mollejas, sweetbreads lightly dusted with flour then deep-fried, and the simple green salad tossed with nuggets of crisped mollejas. (The chef, a true-blue Argentine, is also a sommelier.) With the steaks, there is a selection of Malbecs, whether solo or in a blend, or choose from the well-crafted reds: Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. (The Lagarde Cabernet Franc is gorgeous.) With the flank steak, the Guarda Blend—mostly Malbec with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah—was outstanding, rich and supple against the char and heft of lean, tender meat. The Henry Late-Harvest Viogner-Moscato is dessert in itself, but there is a chocolate pot-de-crème, pavlova, alfajores (the Argentine cookie sandwich) and sugar crèpes with dulce de leche and vanilla ice cream.
The Lagarde winery was founded in 1897 by Jose Angel Pereira and had remained with his family until the Pescarmona family took over in 1920. This makes it one of the oldest, family-owned wineries in Argentina that is also credited with being the first to plant and produce Viognier as a single varietal. All the fruit for the wines are sourced from the estate’s vineyards, some more than a hundred years old.
When they first imported the wines five years ago, Carlo Lorenzana and Bob Tenchavez were newbies in the wine trade, buoyed mostly by their enthusiasm for Lagarde, known then only to a few, mostly their family and friends. That circle has since grown so much wider with Lagarde wines now listed in hotels and restaurants in Manila, Davao and Cebu.
With their latest restaurant venture, there is again the opportunity to introduce the wines of Lagarde in the context of Argentine gastronomy.
Here is where meat is cooked simply over woodfire, Malbec is abundant, and the strains of a tango is never far behind.
VINOFILE
La Cabrera Grillado and Bar: Ground Floor, 6750 Ayala Avenue Business Tower, Glorietta Complex, Ayala Avenue, Makati City. Restaurant hours: from 11 am to 3 pm and from 5:30 to 10:30 pm.
