7 Fuegos Restaurant — Restaurant in Mendoza

This restaurant has been on my bucket-list since 2015 when John Torode's visited this place on the "A Cook Abroad" BBC TV show. Unfortunately the places is a total waste of time and I seriously doubt Mr. Mallmann has set foot in 'his' restaurant let alone supervised his kitchen staff much lately.

NOTE: This restaurant is truly at the end of world, first you have to fly to Argentina, then fly on to Mendoza and then its another 2+ hour drive by car one-way if the roads are not flooded!

My wife and I visited this place twice within a couple of days of each other. The first time we had the regular a-la cart service $120 p.p. + drinks and the second time the Siete Fuegos experience dinner $200 p.p. incl drinks.

From the regular service dinner nothing stood out as especially great, it wasn't bad but was it "OMG I need to eat here again"? Certainly not, however I still wanted to do the Siete Fuegos experience dinner because I secretly had hope that it would be something out of this world...

The Siete Fuegos experience dinner is certainly an experience, sitting right in the kitchen seeing the cooks work in that incredible heat from all those wood fired furnaces is a spectacle to behold.

The starter empanada was good, but have I had better in Argentina? Yes most certainly.

The second course was wild trout, truly beautifully cooked in a salt crust. Seeing the chef gently removing the salt crust I was al excited for what was to come... However once the salt crust was removed the chef proceeded to butcher the delicate trout like a mad-man, hacking away at the meat with spoons, it was truly a horror show to see that beautiful trout being butchered. To finish this horror show, his kitchen help proceeded by putting some olive oil over the fish on our plates and then sprinkling coarse (sea) salt over it!! Anyone that works in a professional kitchen knows that salt doesn't dissolve in oil! So what we got was a delicate trout served with coarse salt grains which was not pleasant to eat.

Then came lamb, grilled butterflied over an open fire the meat was absolutely amazing, probably the best lamb I've ever eaten a true master piece. However this was not lamb, not unless its some genetic hulk mutation of a lamb because that lamb was enough to fee the whole table of 12+ people. I am certain this was mutton which is not a problem however a restaurant of this level should take care in being accurate on their menu.

The restaurant had 3 whole ribeye on the BBQ which I was truly excited about, however this turned out to be yet another disappointment. Between myself, my wife and her neighbor we had 3 different temperatures from a single piece of ribeye. Mine was cooked to death, my wife's was medium-rare but had clearly seen way more heat on one side than the other evident by the thick gray band on the meat and her neighbor had...

It started with very high expectations, given the famous chef that borrowed his name for the restaurant. Everything looks nice, but turned out to be an incredible disappointment. Tried to get some help selecting vines, but they had nobody who knew anything about the wines they offered. After some trial and error, stuck with wine by the glass (which was ok, but not really good). The waitress made us feel that she was super annoyed by us and did not in put any effort. Could have been ignored if the food was excellent. You would expect a culinary delight, but what you get is the culinary fitness of a high school cafeteria. Nothing exiting, any third class restaurant could make the food taste better. The main dish, a steak, came completely overcooked and dry. They braucht a new one, that was totally raw and cold… I did not eat or try it. They wanted to return it to the kitchen to cook some more, but would have just rendered the meat try. Cutting the meat also felt like cutting through the sole of a shoe… never seen such a tough rib-eye in Argentina. my wife’s dish was ok, but miles away from being a great experience or being work anything remotely near the price they charged. Lost my appetite an did not eat any main or desert. At least the supervisor was nice enough not to charge for the one main my wife ate. Paid for the starters that where still at least 3x too expensive for what we got.

Reading the other reviews, I am sure the resort management does not really care and also give this post some generic bs response like „we value your feedback…“

Incredible, incredible disappointment! If I were Francis Mallmann I would hurry and scratch...

Beyond disappointing meal and experience. We came here for Christmas expecting a great time and instead were met with poor service and terrible food. We drove an hour and a half from the city center for what we thought would be a great Christmas meal but instead left feeling ripped off and cheated. Concerning the food, everything was over cooked to the point that it was almost inedible. The turkey was impossible to cut, let alone chew, and the chicken was rubbery and season-less. The pear dessert was also extremely bland and had no flavor whatsoever. As for the service, we had to constantly flag down waiters as they were frequently just standing around talking to one another in the corner. I was also surprised at the lack of care and attention given by the staff. While there were multiple things that occurred , the most frustrating was when one waiter came to remove a plate of chicken, spilling juice from the plate all over the table and nearly drenching my wife. Spilling something is not the problem, but the waiter simply looked at my wife, giggled, and left me to clean the table! I had heard a lot of great things about The Vines and Siete Fuegos, but our experience was terrible. Reading recent reviews I see that some people have had similar experiences and I wish I had seen those comments beforehand. I really hope that Siete Fuegos takes to time to properly train their staff and improve their kitchen. Until then I recommend you stay away and visit other wineries/restaurants that are much higher quality and more...