MARTÍ: A HIGH-END HIDDEN VEGETARIAN RESTAURANT IN BUENOS AIRES FROM ONE OF THE CITY’S MOST RENOWNED CHEFS
The Cost -$44 per person using the official exchange rate
The Atmosphere – You better bring the restaurant’s address, Rodríguez Peña 1973, with you because there is no signage whatsoever indicating that you have arrived at Martí. In fact, when you get there, you will just find a nondescript white door that looks to be a residential building entrance. Push the intercom button and if you have a reservation, you will be buzzed in. After walking through a narrow hallway with dark walls and making a left, you’ll pass through an industrial blue strip door to enter Martí, a chic, upscale restaurant that has floor to high ceiling glass windows that are covered on the outside by lush green foliage. Inside, you’ll find a large open kitchen in the center of the indoor, greenhouse-looking space with a large rectangular bar surrounding it. There are no tables at all in the restaurant, only counter seating around the kitchen with full views into the food preparation activities.
Martí’s employees have a very specific vibe – they look like a group of young, cool, in-the-know hipsters that are loving what they are doing. They set a great tone for the restaurant’s clientele who are also on the younger side and who love the see-and-be-seen aspect of this trendy speakeasy restaurant. Martí is a great spot to take a vegetarian on a date or a perfect place to go with friends before a night out but remember to make a reservation beforehand if you can, even though it is possible to walk in and get a table on some weekday evenings.
Chef Germán Martitegui is best known for his restaurant, Tegui, which has been one of Buenos Aires’s top fine-dining spots since it opened in 2009. Famous for its meats and its focus on Argentinian ingredients, Tegui led Martitegui to become a recognized chef throughout the country and landed him a gig as a judge on multiple TV shows including MasterChef as well as an appearance in the Argentina episode of Netflix’s Somebody Feed Phil. In December of 2021 though, the now celebrity chef moved away from his focus on meat and opened Martí, a vegetarian speakeasy restaurant located in the heart of Buenos Aires’s Recoleta neighborhood.
The Order – Chipa, Pan de Nuez, Remolachas Asadas, Shawarma de Hongos, Ñoquis, Helado de Frambuesa, and Bola de Fraile.
The Fantastic – How do you get a grilled beets dish to earn a Fantastic rating? Add fresh, smoked ricotta cheese to the plate. The star of the show, the ricotta was the perfect amount of smoky to give it a unique and special flavor that paired well with the beautiful spiralized beets. The beets had perfect texture and alongside them was a dill salad and cashews, each of which added some additional flavor to the dish. Overall, the Remolachas Asadas had it all but even if it was just a plate of the smoked ricotta, I would still have been thrilled.
The Great – The second-best dish of the night was the Ñoquis - about eight large, soft potato gnocchi in a brown mushroom-based sauce with mushrooms and ricotta cheese on top. The mushrooms used were grown in an indoor mushroom chamber on the wall of the restaurant that you can see into, making for a fun, up-close and personal, farm-to-table experience. This dish was the heaviest, most substantial one of the evening and it was absolutely delicious.
The Pan de Nuez was a very nice appetizer from the bread section of Martí’s menu. A large, single slice of brown bread with nuts served with a sunflower seed spread, the bread was rich and heavy and very tasty. If you don’t like brown bread, this dish is not for you but if you do, the Pan de Nuez is a great option to start your meal with.
Both desserts that were ordered earned the same Great rating but my favorite one was the Bola de Fraile. A typical German dessert, Martí’s version contained a sugar-coated hole-less donut with a large scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream on top. The donut was delicious, and the vanilla ice cream was perfection – it was rich and milky without being sweet, which was essential given that the donut provided a sufficient amount of sugar for the dish. The combination of the ice cream and the donut was excellent and this dessert is a great option for anyone looking to end their meal with a heavy hitter.
On the other hand, if you are looking to end your meal with something lighter and fruitier, the Helado de Frambuesa, which translates to raspberry ice cream, is a lovely option. A bit of a misnomer, the raspberry ice cream was actually a sorbet, but you don’t miss the milk at all as the sorbet is creamy and the use of water really allows the fresh and light raspberry flavor to come through. The gigantic sphere of sorbet is served with a rectangular pistachio obleo, a wafer cookie, that is far superior to the traditional, sometimes paper-like obleo. It had a very delicate natural pistachio flavor that paired nicely with the strong raspberry sorbet and was a great accompaniment to it.
The Good – The Shawarma, Martí’s version of the traditional Middle Eastern sliced meat dish, is made with the restaurant’s homegrown mushrooms and is one of the most popular dishes on the menu. I loved the mushrooms, which are served in a giant lettuce cup and smothered in a tasty sauce, but did not feel like this dish was satisfying enough alone and wished it was served in a pita or had some other ingredient to help make it feel less like a side dish.
The Chipa, a popular cheese roll in Paraguay and Argentina, was made well by the team at Martí and was served with a fermented mandioca spread. The roll resembles a pao de queijo, the typical Brazilian bread, and you can tell that it is made from high-quality ingredients. While I did like the Pan de Nuez more, I thought that the chipa, with the mandioca spread, was very good.
The Verdict – It is hard to believe that a vegetarian restaurant could be one of the best restaurants in meat-centric Buenos Aires, but Martí should be recognized as such. Besides the wonderful food offerings, the dining experience from the moment you arrive at the unmarked white door to when you walk out of the restaurant’s blue industrial strip door is creative, fun, beautiful, and unique. It may not be the place you go to get your steak fix, but Martí should be on your list of restaurants to visit while in Buenos Aires.