Francis Mallmann
Patagonia Sur | Buenos Aires, Argentina
October 2019
Argentinian native Francis Mallman began working as a cook on a boat for tourists on Lake Nahuel Huapi in his home country in 1970. By the age of 20, he was managing a restaurant with a partner locally, but wanted more exposure to fine dining so he traveled to Paris and learned alongside legends like Alain Chapel and Paul Bocuse. Returning home, he ran the kitchen at a fashionable restaurant and became known for his haute French food. But he broke from this style to return to the open-fire cooking of his youth. In the 1980s, he started appearing on television in Argentina, starring in a series called “Fires of the South.” He also published his first cookbook La Cocina Al Instante in 1984.
His 2009 cookbook Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way won a James Beard Award, and he followed it up with Mallman on Fire in 2014, co-authored by writer Peter Kaminsky. Mallman owns several restaurants focused on Patagonian cuisine, including 1884 Restaurant in Mendoza, Patagonia Sur in Buenos Aires, Siete Fuegos in Mendoza, and Hotel & Restaurant Garzón in Uruguay. In 2015, he opened his first restaurant outside of South America, Los Fuegos by Francis Mallmann, at the Faena Hotel in Miami. He was recently featured in an episode of the Netflix series “Chef’s Table” and on “CBS This Morning.” He’s currently working on a vegan cookbook expected to be released in 2020.
