It is not daring to open a grill in Buenos Aires, a city where neither the rain all year round, nor the scorching summer, nor the perpetual crisis of the economy prevent any street from smelling of burning coal.
In Argentina, where an average of 48 kilos of beef is eaten per person per year, the true audacity is to light an ember and not cook an animal on the fire.
Leo Chajud (Buenos Aires, 43 years old) doesn't think it's such a big deal.
A chef with 12 years of experience, three years ago he opened a grill where the specialty is not the bife de chorizo, the matambre on pizza or the roast strip… it is the portobello stuffed with cheese.
Sampa, the restaurant that he founded with two partners in October 2019 in the Villa Crespo neighborhood, looks like any other neighborhood grill, where the grill stops in the middle and spends the night serving full tables, but here it is The only ones that come out of the coals are pears, papayas, bananas and assorted mushrooms.
"The challenge is not to fill a restaurant with vegetarians," says Chajud.
"The challenge is to like the carnivore that accompanies, the one who comes here like someone who goes to a musical show of a genre that he hates to accompany someone he loves."