2023-06-11 08:28:00
Special envoys from “Río Negro” to Pehuenia Moquehue
For a time where speed, urgency and escape prevail, what would happen to us if we rediscovered slowness, a value that emerges as the current great luxury?
Sergio Andrés Ladisla, chef from Neuquén, knows something about this. At the age of 43, life taught him that you have to slow down to be able to live, look, contemplate and walk light and clean through life.
Much of this spirit is reflected in the cooking he does at the La Escondida inn, in Pehuenia.
Being there, in this restaurant, in the middle of an excessive nature, one midday is a unique experience.
In a sophisticated and relaxed setting at the same time, Sergio presents his dishes to the diner as if in a ceremony full of subtleties, with an explosion of flavors and bursts of color and textures.
“Yes, the presentation of the food on the plates matches the deco of the restaurant. For example? The stained glass windows of some pieces of furniture can well be found replicated in reductions of wine, vinegar, basil and parsley powders, seeds and candied tomatoes around a freshly cooked meat. “I pay a lot of attention to the plates, so that each meal is also showy in colors and textures,” the chef comments to this medium. “Of course, a combination or accompaniment should never overshadow the product, never,” he warns.
Now that the cold hits nice, Sergio recreates caloric dishes for those who stay at the inn or for visitors who walk through Pehuenia who are also looking for elegant, rich and very beautiful cuisine.
One morning a few days ago he was with his team making pumpkin and corn soup, a buseca with beans and tripe, and a tremendous lentil stew. “I don’t leave out trout and lamb: everyone who comes to the town wants to try these two typical products of ours,” he adds. The pastas are infallible.
“Food is always repairing something. Tell me,” she laughs. “After a long day in the snow you want a nice warm dish. After hectic moments or times, you want a moment with a meal that calms your spirit, ”says Sergio who not only appeals to the techniques he learned at the School of Patagonian Cooks in Neuquén but also to the emotional memory of the diners.
“Going back to the tastes and flavors of our childhoods is always good and pleasant”, he highlights. And if this “is combined with some wisdom and excellence with fresh regional products, the moment of eating is incredibly beautiful.”
Sergio, who is a native of the Villa Ceferino neighborhood of the capital Neuquén, came to live in Pehuenia at the beginning of November 2021. “I arrived due to the call of the manager of the inn, with the offer of my current position as chef. I did not doubt it: Pehuenia seems to me a beautiful place due to the daily tranquility that it offers, being a mountain village, which never ceases to amaze me with its landscapes that are renewed at each change of season”.
“I consider it a privilege for anyone to be able to live in such a beautiful place, where work is like a city but daily life is super calm. I also have the plus of being able to work on what I’m passionate about, ”she emphasizes.
After graduating as a kitchen technician almost 20 years ago, at the School of Patagonian Cooks where he was also a teacher, he was a chef at the Magic Casino in the capital of Neuquén.
Then he had his own restaurant between 2012 and 2019. This point in his career brought him new challenges such as planning, merchandise control, hiring staff, taxes and everything that comes with being an entrepreneur.
Then in the pandemic he had a stoppage for various reasons. The goal in that moment of confusion was to find its axis, its purpose and its mission on all levels. When he was doing that, the phone call from Vanina, the manager of La Escondida, projected him into the future.
“There I just woke up, grabbed the books again, reviewed the techniques… the kitchen, once again, was once again my place of life. I packed my bag and came expectant. Thanks to the support and trust of Vanina, the owners of La Escondida and the staff, we are here, offering something different and in keeping with the level of the inn and Pehuenia”, the interviewee proudly confesses.
“I am at a moment where I can take everything more calmly, to always focus on obtaining excellence in our kitchen. Here I found calm in the face of such a rush that I knew how to live at some point in life. Before, I survived; Now, I live, I enjoy. Before I was on pause; now on the move without running. I learned it thanks to gastronomy and Pehuenia”, concludes the interviewee.
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