Diego Tapia, creative partner and chef of the venue, highlighted the strong teamwork at Centauro. They have implemented a creative laboratory, which meets every week to think about their dishes, always based on reinterpreting Mendoza as terroir and generating a map of ingredients and producers.
Creativity flows naturally at Centauro from the beginning of the experience, the menu proposes dishes with names such as “Autumn Foam”, “Hatch”, “Spell” or “Orange Sun”. Diners encounter here gastronomic innovation, giving a twist to classic dishes with different presentations and textures. Even the tableware was designed by the Centauro team.
This gastronomic project seeks to highlight the diversity of Mendoza’s produce, appreciating their seasonality and the various ways the local community has of preserving and enhancing them. From this founding purpose, the team is mapping local producers who supply the freshest ingredients for their recipes.
On the other hand, and no less important, Centauro is a carbon neutral restaurant. The team measures the footprint and takes actions to offset it.
“Every visit to a producer, every trip made by our team, every fire that is lit will be compensated, for today, for tomorrow, for the years to come, so that we can continue dreaming, creating and being an active part of the whole: we are carbon neutral,” says the presentation on the Centauro website.
About the pairings
To propose pairings for the different dishes, Centauro organizes specific workshops with its sommelier and service staff. They taste the dishes together with other specialists and make pairing proposals. Sometimes they invite in sommeliers from other establishments or representatives of wineries to present their products.
Their cellar has 200 labels of Mendoza wines and includes large and small wineries, sparkling wines, and experimental wines, among others. The goal is to mix classic and new wines; classic and innovative ones, including biodynamic, natural and organic ones. This cellar represents a journey through the wine oases of Mendoza.
Orange sun, Argentine music as inspiration for an exquisite dessert
Babasónicos is an iconic Argentine contemporary rock band. Their song Sol Naranja (Orange Sun) was a hit a few years ago and now comes back to Centauro, giving its name to one of the desserts.
This sweet dish is made exclusively with one of the identifying products of Mendoza cuisine: pumpkin. Different culinary preparation techniques create a variety of flavors and textures of this ingredient, generating a comprehensive gastronomic experience that uses the entire product. It includes pumpkin in syrup, seeds in the form of an exquisite praline, a sponge with part of the pulp and an ice cream with the rest of it. Everything is decorated with pumpkin paper and caramel sauce made with milk from a Mendoza dairy farm.
“The process begins with the presentation of an ingredient in our laboratory, such as pumpkin. Then the team tests different recipes. When they consider they have reached the best alternative, it is offered on the menu. Another challenge is to combine that ingredient with other products from Mendoza. In this case, we ended up combining pumpkin with caramel sauce and ice cream made of milk from a Mendoza dairy farm. The other thing to keep in mind is that we seek to use the whole product. In the case of pumpkin, we use pulp, seeds and the dehydrated peel as a powder. We don’t have any waste. This is also one of our goals, sustainability,” the chef concluded.
Get tempted at Centauro (@centauro.restaurante) • Fotos y videos de Instagram
Texts and Photo Credits: EMETUR (Tourism Board of Mendoza) and Centauro Restaurant.