The calm of the Cordillera kitchen before dinner service and an empty dining room made the setting feel less like a restaurant and more like a dinner party at a particularly well-stocked home,  fireplace aglow in the background.

Amy and Victor, both Boston natives, began their honeymoon in Buenos Aires, a bustling metropolis built for serious shopping, historical city tours and late nights out.  After a week wandering the city streets, they traveled west, settling in Mendoza before finally heading home.  Coming to Mendoza straight off the streets of the Argentine capital can be a shock to the system, a welcomed respite and a time to savor the softer side of Argentine life.

After a day of winery visits, Amy and Victor stepped into the back of the house of Cordillera for a traditional cooking class at the restaurant of one of Mendoza´s favorite chefs.

Cordillera Vinos y Fuegos, under the direction of Chef Lucas Bustos (Argentine chef with an international following), highlights traditional Mendoza dishes, each paired with local wines and bubblies.  The parrilla stretches across the width of the kitchen, a brick platform with a massive stock of wooden logs stacked below, fuel for the fire.  And the pantry is full of fresh cheeses and locally grown produce.

When the honeymooning couple arrived at Cordillera Vinos y Fuegos, a small fire flickered in the open air kitchen.  Traditional argentine cuisine is known for heat – not spice – quite literally, fire.  Kindled with just a few scraps of wood, the growing flames were just the precursor to the steady blaze of red hot embers ever-present in traditional argentine kitchens.

Noelia Rinaudo, sommelier, greeted the couple with a flute of pisco sour, a favorite Chilean drink.  Once lubricated with a citric cocktail and tied into aprons, Amy and Victor edged up to the bar that overlooked the indoor parrilla, and awaited instructions.

Chef Raul Saez, chef de cuisine, began with a rundown of the menu:  grilled provolone cheese caprese salad, humita of roasted corn and butternut squash, artisan bread, fillet of beef with roasted green pepper sauce, and green apple crepes with dulce de leche and caramelized fruit salad.

Chef Saez had prepared a menu that would showcase typical argentine cooking techniques and Mendoza flavors, but can also be replicated back home.  No impossibly rare ingredients, no dangerously obscure technique, just elevated Argentine home cooking.

Throughout the meal the apprentice chefs were treated to small bites of appetizers, little morsels of sustenance to calm the grumbling stomachs and salivating mouths.  These morsels included brie cheese drizzled with olive oil, Spanish tortilla with fresh herbs and little nibbles of this and that, taste tests to make sure the flavors were up to par.

As the couple divided and conquered Saez´s list of cooking tasks, they shared travel stories with the staff, cooking secrets with Saez and conversation in Italian.  They chopped and kneaded, puréed, mixed, stirred and sipped through bottles of wine as the dinner hour inched closer and the dishes transformed from a raw pile of ingredients into a restaurant quality meal.  All the while Chef Saez´s guided them through the steps, demonstrating knife work, building up the fire and deftly handling the trickier tid-bits as the couple looked on.

An hour or so later, Amy and Victor clinged glasses as they were served the meal they had prepared.   They say hunger is the best spice, but there´s something to be said about the pleasure of a meal made by hand.

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