Pablo Ranea
answers the phone from
the Grand Canyon
.
The communication is cut off and he manages to send a photo in which you can see arid vegetation and a cactus.
A while later, when the signal returns, he will say that he is in his running routine before starting to cook, in advance of one of the dinners that for four years
have taken him around the world for eight months: he is a nomadic cook
.
While speaking with
Clarín
he is in Tucson, Arizona, where he is beginning his 2024 tour. Like a music star, Ranea's
Eras Tour
begins in the spring of the northern hemisphere, in the southwest of the United States.
“Now it is divine, but then it gets very hot,” explains the chef.
He will continue through Phoenix, also in Arizona, go up to California and then head towards the east coast until
he has counted 30 cities
, before continuing through Canada, Peru and perhaps China in the second half.
What are
Ranea's
shows like?
He defines them as
pop up dinners
, dinners in which the chef presents modern Argentine cuisine dishes paired with great national wines.
Because this 50-year-old from Mendoza is also a sommelier.
“They are experiences for small groups.
We have different formats, but most of the time there is a host who receives about 18 or 20 people.
It can be in a house, an art gallery, an intervention in a restaurant.
In North Carolina we had
a dinner in a flower garden in the mountains
, an incredible place,” she says.
Some of the dishes that its audience
praises
are
typical Salta empanadas
, fried and juicy with its yasgua sauce, which is also served with two Salta Malbecs with very different profiles, so that the diner can appreciate those differences in the pairing with the food.
His other
hits
are the trout tiradito with leche de tigre, scallops and green chimichurri, or an old-school flan, with a lot of yolk and a lot of dulce de leche with Torrontés kumquats.
“I try to show
a more contemporary Argentine cuisine
.
The meat appears but it is not such a protagonist, because I can't set up the fires as much.
And because I also want to show that Argentina is not just steak,” she expresses.
Pablo Ranea was born in Mendoza and is a diffuser of Argentine wine.
And since it's not just steak, it's not just Malbec either.
That is why it makes a careful selection of wines, both from well-known labels abroad and from smaller wineries.
Now he is fascinated with showing off at his dinners
a Patagonian wine that is produced at the 45th parallel end
.
“Our main mission as wine communicators is to show that Argentina is much more than Malbec.
We are experiencing
a truly exceptional moment
, surprising with our wines in quality and expression, and at very affordable prices compared to other wine regions,” he says.
Therefore, in their dinners there are generally
five courses and ten drinks
.
“The experience is the pairing.
My challenge with gastronomy is to live up to such wines.
Gastronomy is the time to talk about stories, ingredients, preparations.
That's why I apply everything I absorb on my travels,” she clarifies to explain how a Peruvian yellow chili can appear with marinated meat.
In action.
Ranea preparing the dishes for one of her dinners.
Their dinners
cost about $220
, “a price similar to what you would get to eat a menu with the cheapest pairing in the United States.”
And his clients, she says, are very eclectic but they have something in common.
“They are foodies without defining themselves as such, they appreciate these types of experiences and
are attentive to wine and food
.
From the meetings over all these years, groups end up coming to Mendoza because they want to see the wineries,” he points out.
And he adds that these dinners, in some cases, became annual events that his clients look forward to and repeat, because they enjoy this
gathering that is so typical for Argentines
and so rare in American culture.
From graphic design to traveling cooking
In order to carry out her project, Ranea required
a special work visa
“for professionals with exceptional skills” which is very difficult to obtain.
But for the chef it was possible to achieve it with his CV and with the letters of endorsement signed by
several of the most important names in Latin American gastronomy
.
Ranea's dinners attract an audience that enjoys the Argentine experience of "getting together."
Ranea has an important
background
.
Graduated as a graphic designer at the University of Cuyo, he worked in gastronomy while studying.
When he graduated, he emigrated to Spain and there discovered cooking in another context.
He returned and studied at the Gato Dumas Cooking School.
“
I decided to reinvent myself and dove in headfirst.
I returned and worked with Rodrigo Toso at the Central restaurant.
There I discovered the new Argentine cuisine, so interesting with its presentations,” he recalls.
The path continued in the Marriott hotel chain, for which he worked on several paradisiacal islands in the Caribbean, and returned again to Mendoza, where in 2006 he took over the kitchen of
a restaurant that was almost a warehouse
where some boards of cold cuts were sold, preserves and wines, to give it an a la carte format and with steps at a time when winery restaurants were already consolidated in the province but there were still few quality ones in the city.
The menu includes five courses and ten glasses of wine for about $220.
Before leaving in 2016 to dedicate herself fully to nomadic cuisine, Ranea managed to position that restaurant first on TripAdvisor.
That restaurant was (is)
Azafrán
, recently awarded a Michelin star.
“I was thrilled when he received the star.
Saffron was not put together overnight.
There were generations of chefs who maintained it and made it grow.
I really value that process that Sebastián Weigandt (NdR, his current head chef) does of constantly searching and trying creations.
Saffron is like a son, who raises and then you see him received and receiving awards.
He fills me with emotion
”, He repeats.
Ranea wanted to leave the kitchen of a restaurant because she felt like she was missing something fundamental.
“My goal as a chef is to make people happy.
I enjoy cooking, but I also enjoy contact with people while I cook.
At Azafrán I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, but also a lot with the clients.”
In 2010, with Alejandro Cohen, his partner, who is an architect and worked in many wineries, they began to have
closed-door dinners for eight people in the dining room of their house
.
Dreamed.
Some of the locations where meals take place.
“It became something very crazy because we went to the first places on TripAdvisor.
He competed with me in Saffron!
It was a lot of fun because all the winemakers wanted to have a space at our table.
And since many wanted to reproduce that experience, combined with the fact that I was already traveling abroad to teach and present Argentine wines in culinary institutes, it came together,” he says about Pirca Food and Wine, the germ of what he does today.
Always, at the end of the year, Pablo and Alejandro return to Mendoza to “make base” and recharge their family connection.
For the chef they are also months of intense work cooking in the wineries and getting to know new wines.
He says that continuous training is something that drives him, and that is why he is now about to
finish his training as a master ice cream maker
.
“In restaurants there are resident chefs and temporary chefs.
I don't have a fixed place and at the same time I have many places:
I am a nomadic chef
,” she labels herself.
ACE