Espacio Salentein — Restaurant in Mendoza

My visit to Killka (the name of Salentein´s founder) is one of the great culinary experiences of my life. And -as you may read in my reviews- I have a lot of those. The restaurant is inside the Salentein bodega but you could go directly in. You may choose a la Carte from the menu, a two course menu or the tasting menu with five courses pairing with their own top end wines, that´s the one I choose. When you arrive at you table, you got a big rustic bread campesino¨, with a lot of very dense crumb and some chicken escabeche (chicken breast marinated in vinagrette with carrots and onion) and your first wine a glass of pettillant Cuvée spéciale extra brut. Very soft and frutal, it is made at this Valley of Uco, but it deserve tha name of Champagne. Then you got an appetizer: bruschetta with dry tomatoes paste and brie caramelized with brown sugar. You may continue with the cuveé extra brut. The appetizer was very good but without any surprise; the brie was not mature enough for my taste but I presumed it is made for a more general audience. As a starter you may choose a empanada cuyana (turnover filled with meat) or a Tuna Tartar with a langoustine brochette with avocado mousse. I choose the later. The tuna tartar was more a ceviche, but a very good one. The langoustine were excepcionally good -I came from a place where is a local speciality and those were great- with a very clean flavor in their exact point of cooking, not raw, not rubbery. The avocado mouse was their perfect companion, air fluffed avocado with only a dash of olive oil. The wine was Sauvignon Blanc. Good but I prefered the Cuveé and suprise! you could ask for seconds in the wine! For the Main course you may choose a Grilled rib eye steak or Salmon. Since I was in Argentina, I ask for the meat. It came a large portion with a beautiful potato Mille Feullies, some cherry tomatoes and a mushroom mouse. I know this dish looks like meat and potatoes, it is but a very sophisticated one! the mille feullies was very delicate and make company but don´t disturb the perfect steak that was excellent even in the land of the meat! the wine was a great Numina Malbec 2017, a wine with a great body acquired with 18 month in french oak cask. You know the red malbecs from Mendoza, red fruits, prunes but this one has a note of vanilla and remains in you mouth and throat for a good while until it begin to feel as a fond memory. They were quite generous with the wine, the glasses are of a good size and as I said you may ask for seconds. Then you have a Sauvignon Blanc sorbet to cleanse the dear ghost of the meat and the Malbec. "Sorbet" is the name in the menu but it has more the texture of a slurpee that of a sherbet. Anyway it cleans the palate very nicely. For dessert I got a delicious spicy hot chocolate cake with zabaione ice cream. One of my guilty pleasures in life is take chocolate or a chocolate related dessert with red wine. The pairing with the Numina and this cake was made in heaven! both strong with definite personalities but easy to be persuaded to a matching with similar character. I was offered tea or coffee that take grateful because I should return to Mendoza City -not driving of course-. Another plus of this fantastic meal is the price. In March 2019 it is 55 US Dollars all thouse courses and wines included but WITHOUT tip, included a bottle of water, with or without bubbles and coffee. The service was very good without the ice treatment I got sometimes when dining alone. RESERVATION NEEDED! you got free WiFi for telling the world about...

We arrived there just on time for lunch. We were on one of the first tables to be seated. After choosing our menu and getting our first plate we realized that all the other tables had gotten some bread with some type of sauce. They forgot about us and totally pretended not to see that (even when they came to take the plates). The food is really good! But nothing special at all. I’d expect something more elaborated for this price (10,500.00 per person). The second thing that got me intrigued is that there was a street dog roaming around the restaurant and the waiters pretended that it was something normal. The dog was full of fleas and totally not taken care of. None of the waiters took the dog away (you would expect a high level restaurant not to have street animals roaming between the tables). At some point the dog even jumped on my GF and got her blouse mud dirty. The third and last thing was that there was SO MUCH trash on the grass. Pieced of paper, plastic, cigarettes. It seems like no one has ever cleaned that up. In the end, I’d recommend you to take the tour but eat somewhere else (maybe even better for that price tag). I didn’t...

My wife and I had a fabulous time on a private tour at Bodega Salentein. Our tour guide, Marcelo, made the experience memorable with his passionate and knowledgeable presentation, and we felt so very welcomed. The six wines we tried were all excellent and each at the top of its class. Our favorite was the Numina Gran Corte, which is a blend of malbec, cabernet, merlot, cab franc, and petit verdot. The Primus malbec 2015 was excellent as well. The tour normally takes 1.5 hours but we got along so well with Marcelo, it was well over 2 hours and we were still in tasting room when Marcelo finally was asked to move on. Just to demonstrate the tremendous hospitality this Bodega shows its visitors. Would love to re-visit next time...