La Lomiteria El Chalten — Restaurant in El Chaltén

The sandwich was nice, very expensive at US$17.90 but sadly normal for Chaltén.

The service was not good however. As someone who doesn’t eat bacon, I wanted to swap my bacon for cheese, a relatively simple and common request. I was told it wasn’t possible, I’d have to pay extra for the cheese.

The excuses and reasons why kept changing; first it was because ‘cheese costs more than bacon’ despite me pointing out that on the toppings menu they charge less for cheese than bacon, so this change would save them money. Then it changed to ‘well those costs are wrong’. Then it changed to ‘changes make it more complex for the kitchen so we don’t allow them’, but I pointed out that they literally said I could make the change but at a cost so that isn’t true. Then it changed to ‘something about everyone wanting changes’. No excuse made any sense, just seemed like them being jerks and not willing to be flexible to accommodate dietary preferences or requirements. In the end midway through cooking they did say they’d ’as an exception’ allow the swap. But the damage had already been done to be frank.

Another example of the really bad / rude Argentinian customer service that we’ve sadly experienced up and down the entire country...

Very difficult to rate this place 🫤

1. The sandwich was super tasty 5/5, no brainer here
2. Fries were ok, but quite oily 3/5 at best
3. Pricewise a sandwich and big fries are approx 10k pesos (11 USD), beer in can additional 2k pesos (or ~2USD). The bill for 2 then easily gets to 25k ... which is expensive for a fast food in Argentina
4. The place is a small bistro. Expect to eat and get out in less than 30 min
5. When we got home we realised, that our clothes are super smelly (oil), 1/5

Final verdict? If you are a sandwich lover and don't care about money, then feel free to grab a takeaway sandwich. Otherwise, I don't feel like I got the value for the money I have spent🥪

To put that into perspective: steak for 2, bottle of wine and dessert can cost you around 40k in one of the best restaurants in El Chalten 🥩🍷

All in all, this was a value trap for me😔

At the time of writing this 1 USD was...

we had a lomito combo for AR$13,500 which is around US$13.5 The combo brings a big lomito split in half, fries and a soda of choice. It was enough for both me and my husband (he added a beer to the order which we shared, because it was pretty large, so i just took my soda home). The lomito and fries were both delicious and the meat (lomo, a type of beef) was thick and perfectly cooked. Plus, the girl that works there (Yamila) was super nice and even gave us some tips for when we visit her province of origin (Salta). They have bar seating style and only regular tables on the outside. We ate at the bar tables and it was alright. You can also buy...