A Taste of Argentina in the Vail Valley

Four Seasons Vail Resort and Residences Vail has brought Chef Juan Gaffuri and his considerable talents from Four Seasons Hotel Buenos Aires restaurant Elena to Vail for the next month to offer locals and visitors a Taste of Argentina in Vail Valley.

Chef Juan Gaffuri’s menu has several special cuts of beef as you would expect given that beef is an essential part of the Argentine diet. Photo: West of 105

Elena is the only hotel restaurant to be included on the 2022 list of Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants, making the residency at Four Seasons Vail Resort and Residences a rare opportunity to try a quintessential Argentine steakhouse in the mountains of Colorado.

Coming from the town of Rosario (the same town as a certain Lionel Messi, but don’t ask Gaffuri about Messi as he is a supporter of Rosario Central, the hometown rival of Messi’s first professional club Newell's Old Boys), Chef Juan Gaffuri started with the Four Seasons as a commis chef and after working at several other FS properties around the world—Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt; Punta Mita, Mexico; Washington DC; and San Diego among others—he is back where he started, but this time heading up arguably one of Argentina’s best restaurants.

Chef Juan Gaffuri’s menu is, as you would expect of a menu from Argentina, a blend of European techniques with traditional South American ingredients—not forgetting that potatoes and tomatoes among many other vegetables are native to the continent—along with several special cuts of beef as you would expect given that beef is an essential part of the Argentine diet and the culture.

The 34oz Angus T-bone that has been dry aged for 45 days is the premium cut of the premium cuts; there is also a 16oz version as

well as a New York strip steak, and a 21-oz bife

de chorizo which is an Argentinian equivalent of the

New York strip.

Elsewhere on the menu there are items that you are perhaps not likely to see elsewhere in the Vail Valley including salmorejo (an Andalusian soup of tomato and bread) with burrata; beef carpaccio which is served with potato bread and is intended to be stuffed inside to make a decadent sandwich; and arroz negro, a visually stunning dish of black rice with green beans; prawns; and chistorra, a sausage typically found in Spain’s Basque Country. There are four wines on the menu to accompany the dishes. All four—a Chardonnay, a Cabernet Franc, and two Malbecs—are from Argentina’s famed Mendoza region.

Select menu items from Flame, the Four Seasons Vail’s modern steakhouse, will also be available alongside the full menu from Elena.

The Elena residence runs through September 4th.