Penelope Canonico
01/23/2021 15:10
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 01/23/2021 15:10
"Come, come with me and lock the door," he says in the middle of a November afternoon.
They walk through San Martín and stop at the corner of La Rioja.
- Why did you bring me?
To see how the previous owner melted? - he asks puzzled.
The owner of a real estate agency comes out of the premises.
He greets them and exchanges a few words.
"Then we follow her because I'm waiting for people," she says with some haste.
"It's us," intervenes the companion.
Walter doesn't understand anything.
-Do you want advice for you and your children? - He asks his partner puzzled
-You are going to put it into practice in this place that we are going to rent.
I love you as a partner.
You are the best, there is no other.
Deposit your passion and experience that I will take care of what is missing.
Walter Bertinat
has gastronomy marked by fire in his blood.
In La Feliz he is known as "Manotas", a nickname he has kept since the 80s, because of the way he mixes his drinks, with one hand and in a small shaker.
He is moved when he remembers that scene in which his friend Beto, Alberto Visciarelli, suggested that he join a commercial company with the name Manotas & Be to
maintain the spirit of the Mar del Plata icon.
"I'm moving"
, reads the sign that he placed in front of the Luro gallery at 3050 to announce the move.
WhatsApp statuses and word of mouth also helped.
The inauguration of the new café-bar, located on the corner of La Rioja and San Martín, was on December 5.
There is still no one who passes through the window without greeting him warmly or congratulating him on the new endeavor.
From Manotas to Manotas, it reads on the card of a flowerpot.
It is a car gift that he made to the house.
Hanging on a red wall, paintings by renowned artists such as
Celia Cruz, Serrat, Tom Jones, Julio Iglesias, Jairo or Sandro
give an air of nostalgia to the environment.
In the background, music from the 60s. A sparrow perches on the counter.
"It is a good omen," he exclaims while bumping his friend and partner Alberto, whom he met years ago
in a salsa and bachata class.
Make me
the best drink, says a client of the house as he settles down at the bar.
The barman from the Atlantic area moves with ease between drinks and liquors while preparing the drink that bears his name, awarded in a contest as the best flavor of the night.
Víctor Laplace and Mariano Mores
once tried their drinks.
He hopes that so will Palito Ortega, who he considers a musical legend.
A waiter by profession, Walter always worked as a gastronomic clerk.
During his childhood he played waitressing tables.
He saved weight for weight until he built his own space.
The café-bar is the passion that sums up his life.
2020 was a year of change.
He turned 60, avoided bankruptcy, changed homes and became a
grandfather to Olivia, who is now three months old
.
Walter Bertinat, they nickname him Manotas.Photo MARCELO CARROLL
"The year did not say goodbye without leaving any aftermath," he says as he unrolls the right side of his shirt to show the gauze on the inside of his arm.
A kitchen burn between spoon and ladle.
“It was a week and a half after opening.
When he lit the fire to boil the water of the Sorrentinos, a problem with the knob caused the explosion.
His hair was invaded by fire, I put it out with my hands.
The doctor said that he could have gone blind ”, one of the waitresses tells Clarín.
Reborn like the phoenix
The day he announced the closure of Manotas to his classmates, he cried like a child from whom sweets are taken away.
He was at the limit of his possibilities.
He accumulated a debt of four months of rent and other thousands of pesos in bills of services.
Under the modality "delivery" and "take away" it did not even reach 20% of the usual billing.
The blows of the pandemic predicted the final blow.
“When I see that they mistreat the gastronomic sector, my tears fall,” he confesses.
“I want to share this idea with you: our colleague and friend Walter Manotas is going through an already unsustainable situation with the rental of his premises.
He has a large debt that I think that by collecting about 40/50 thousand pesos we can help him negotiate and that his cafe does not close forever.
We all know that his entire life goes by.
It occurred to me that those who can contribute $ 500 or $ 1000 would be a great blessing to their life.
I know that we are all having a hard time but out there we can give you a little help.
For this reason we take him out of the group for a little while, I hope he's still alive hehe.
Thank you and God bless you! ”, Said the message that Leonardo shot in the WhatsApp gastronomic group, appealing to the solidarity of his colleagues in the field.
In just a few days they collected $ 120,000 that brought Walter's smile back.
Now do you understand why we removed you from the group?
He remembers the preamble to the scene in which he was handed the envelope, while a drop of water runs down his left cheek.
Walter faced the ropes again.
He managed to regularize the business accounts, but could not stay because the contract ended in November and they were not going to renew it.
The owner had another project.
It was the moment when Beto appeared to propose the opening of a cafe bar on the corner of San Martín and La Rioja.
"Hope is the last thing you lose.
Having faith, conviction and trust, everything is possible ”, he sentenced with a gesture of relief.
The premises of the Luro Gallery where the old Manotas used to work still remains empty.
A lifetime in La Feliz
-I come for the bartender position.
- What do you know how to do?
- 1500 drinks.
Manotas was 16 years old when he approached a canteen in the port
to apply for a job and get some mangoes for his kid expenses.
There he began his first steps in the gastronomic universe.
Although he flirted with being a priest or a veterinarian;
In the 1980s he enrolled in hotel school to gain experience.
He toured Las Leñas, El Bolsón, Villa La Angostura and countless landscapes as a bartender.
He was born in Bahía Blanca, but he always felt that his place in the world was Mar del Plata.
He knew the city by staying at the house of his uncles who live near the Grotto of Lourdes.
"One day they found me praying to the Virgin to grant me the miracle that my father got a job in Mar del Plata," he recalls outlining a shy smile.
And so it was, when he turned 12 they moved to La Feliz because his father would start working on the yellow boats in the port area.
Today, his son Oscar (27), assists him in the profession as a waiter.
He is also the father of Sofía (23) who works in a neighborhood market.
“I feel accompanied by a special person that I met as a cafe customer three years ago.
I fell in love with her by dedicating a complete audition to her on the radio.
Her name is Naomi and she is my girlfriend.
Every breath you take
, performed by The Police, is the theme that represents us ”, he reveals as he clings to his lucky charm, a stone with which he feels energetically protected.
In a drawer, she keeps a napkin that Napkin gave her on October 6, 2020 with the inscription: "I love you very much, don't worry."
Manotas does not give up in the face of adversity.
He fought through thick and thin to conquer his dreams.
Multifaceted, he values friendships and knows how to do everything at the bar.
He enters before 6.30 in the morning and leaves with the last client, around 1 in the morning.
-Good morning, did you open?
-Come on, pretend you're at home.
Walter looks for the shaker to shake a fruit smoothie in a city that is slowly becoming happy again.
