Lelé Cristóbal turns 50: "You get big and the best restaurant is where the waiter knows you best"

When he was still in his thirties and burst onto television, sponsored by Narda Lepes,

All adjectives that alluded both to his youth and to the type of cuisine that he turned into a trademark at

(Av. San Juan 450):

Now that

- he turns 50 at the end of this year - and

some things have changed a bit.

Lelé is the alma mater of two other proposals

(La Cantina and La Vermutería) and has

: 22 “sangucheras stops” throughout the country and another almost sixty more planned for the near future.

So, what was left of the self-assurance and rebellious impetus of the early days?

Lelé Cristóbal: the "skater cook" turns 50

Lele Cristobal at the Peperina Gastronomic Festival in Cordoba.

Photo: Gonzalo Escamilla

Whoever saw him a few weeks ago putting his body

can answer that question.

The witnesses are not few: thousands of people passed by his post to take a picture "with the cook from TV" and taste his powerful grilled bologna sandwich.

Lelé's culinary tours around the interior of the country have a lot of rock mystique.

No planes and fleeting and aseptic appearances with a couple of assistants.

, travels for days in two trucks loaded with equipment and food.

The destination can be Córdoba or the Quebrada de Humahuaca and a few days later, Patagonia.

The sandwich that Lelé Cristóbal offered at the Peperina Gastronomic Festival in Cordoba.

Photo: Gonzalo Escamilla

Lelé explains it like this: “

They are people who may not be able to go to my restaurant and they really appreciate having me here making a stew or a little sandwich.

They give you a lot of love inside, there are zero masks, a day I take 2,000 sandwiches and 3,000 photos, ”he laughs.

In Buenos Aires things are different: “At this point in my life I can come to a fair and be in the sun for 12 hours cooking but then I go back home and maybe I won't work at one of the restaurants for a year

I have super armed teams and if you go, you eat the same or better than when I am there.

2022 took me the whole year full of the development of sangucherías.

-How do you do to deposit so much in your work teams at a time where gastronomy raise the lack of trained personnel as a widespread problem?

-Yes, it is true, there is a mess of personnel.

But I can not complain.

You have to pay attention to them, listen to everyone.

My head chef was my first bachero.

She has been working with me for 19 years, we are friends, we went to weddings and wakes together, we made a thousand trips.

Lelé Cristóbal two years ago in front of Café San Juan.

Photo: Fernando de la Orden.

I live opposite the restaurant, in that sense it is like my home.

What you don't have to lose is the magic and

It's like a marriage...

I don't have a lot of turnover of people.

For that you have to pay well

, people have to be 100% blank, the climate at work has to be good, the staff's food too.

You have to pay for any kind of extras that arise.

All this should be logical and normal, but we are in a country where it does not happen.

-Why, instead of putting another restaurant, did you decide to bet on the business of sangucherías en paso?

-It is a way of continuing to grow, but in another way.

It allows me to reach the whole country with a product of mine.

and do something more federal.

Lelé Cristóbal a decade ago. Photo: María Eugenia Cerutti.

We started in Arroyo Seco, near Rosario… There are in Greater Buenos Aires, in Bariloche… and we are about to open in Córdoba and Bahía Blanca.

You have to make a logistical layout, it is not that you open a sanguchería where you want.

Because you need them all to have the same product, the same preserves, the same bread.

And I am behind all the complaints, I receive them in person.

Because it's one thing to think of a sandwich and try it at home and another for it to happen just like that at a service station.

I would not like someone to go and leave saying “this is terrible”.

Although it can happen, even in a restaurant a bad day can happen.

Maybe I ate for the ortho and after 15 days I come back and it was great, because anyone can have a bad day...

One of the sangucheras stops of Café San Juan.

-What kind of places do you like to eat?

-With my wife we ​​eat a lot of Japanese food.

, it's where I go, I sit down and they know what I drink and what I eat.

I feel comfortable.

When I don't know where to go, I go to El Preferido.

And another of my favorites is the Gran Dabbang of Palermo

.

I don't know how much any of them cost because

, I don't even know how much money I have.

The truth is that now I am more salty.

-And how do you get along with gastronomic trends?

-I consume all, I try everything.

Some I like more than others.

I like the more traditional asado,

.

I am very traditional with meat.

lele cristobal photo: Gonzalo Escamilla

Then there is

We ate a lot of pastries!

But hey, that is polished and finished.

In the end, only those who really know how to cook and make delicious dishes remain.

-At the end of the year you turn 50, how do you reach the fifth decade?

-

He had been eating a lot, doing little sport.

I now do intermittent fasting and a long walk every day.

I do not deprive myself of anything but I eat in a more conscious way.

look too

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They toured 280 bodegones in Buenos Aires and chose the 10 best dishes