Original subtitles

♪ ♪

So I'm trying to understand Buenos Aires,

but I've only got a week.

♪ ♪

♪ I took a walk through this ♪

♪ Beautiful world ♪

♪ Felt the cool rain ♪

♪ On my shoulder ♪

♪ Found something good ♪

♪ In this beautiful world ♪

♪ I felt the rain getting colder ♪

♪ Sha la, la, la, la ♪

♪ Sha la, la, la, la, la ♪

♪ Sha la, la, la, la ♪

♪ Sha la, la, la, la, la ♪

♪ ♪

Kind of amazing they work, you know?

I'm still, like, I look at a plane and I'm figuring...

I understand scientifically how they fly,

but it doesn't look like it should work.

No, it doesn't.

That's a big hunk of metal.

Yeah.

And who are these people?

They're waiting for friends to arrive or no?

They're just here looking at planes.

Yes, it's popular.

You come here, and you watch a couple of planes come and go.

The whole family.

Yeah.

♪ ♪

Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina,

second largest country in South America.

It's got a quirky, unique character all its own.

It looks like no other place, and it feels unlike any other.

♪ ♪

Oh, silence.

Yeah, right?

It's very pretty here.

I mean, it's really beautiful.

I'm glad I came in the summer.

It's really quiet.

It's got sort of a mournful, sad,

sweet quality that I like.

Fits with the architecture.

♪ ♪

Where does everybody go?

Like now, where is everybody?

The city's empty.

The month of January, everyone's gone for the holidays.

January and February are the hottest months here,

middle of summer and most Porteños

who can afford it get out of town to cooler climes.

They go to Uruguay or Mar del Plata,

which our beach, or to Patagonia or to the north.

- I have a home in Patagonia. - Uh-huh.

Far away from any restaurant.

It has no internet, no electricity, no phone.

I mean, it's a little anti-social, for a guy

who's a communicator... You're all over television.

Yeah, I... I'm not very social.

Chef-Restaurateur Francis Mallmann

is one of the biggest and most influential figures

in Latin American gastronomy, a TV star,

head of a restaurant empire, and now in middle age,

gives delightfully few shits about anything unimportant.

This is a restaurant I love.

Carlitos.

He serves you whatever he has.

There's no menu.

♪ ♪

Of all the places in the world

that Francis Mallmann can eat and has eaten,

it's this place he wanted to take me to,

Bodegón Don Carlitos.

It's him and his wife in the kitchen

with the two daughters.

There's nobody else, and they've been open for 45 years.

An unassuming family-run joint

across from the soccer stadium.

So who are the customers ordinarily?

You... you know, he doesn't have prices.

It's fun because you see very simple people,

and if you look sort of wealthy and elegant,

you will get a big check, and if not,

you will get a small check.

That's the way it works.

- Ah, this is Carlitos. - Carlitos.

How do you do, sir?

How are you?

Welcome.

Thank you.

Oh, beautiful.

I will have this guy.

There are gods here besides tango and football,

or soccer, as we call it.

There is beef.

Porteños, as residents of Buenos Aires are called,

like beef and meat in general, but particularly beef.

That's fantastic.

Man, I love this place already.

Yes, I love meat.

I eat meat every day.

The morcilla.

Now that's exciting.

This is one of my favorite things on Earth.

Boudin.

Love it.

♪ ♪

Now, it's a proud country.

I mean, one of the stereotypes is that Argentines

are too proud, that they're... and full of themselves.

Vain, proud.

If this is so, why is psychotherapy

so huge in this country?

I mean, this is the kingdom of doubt.

You know, my kids have been to the shrink

since they're eight for a year or two

because, you know, go to the shrink

and talk to someone who you don't know.

With whom you can say whatever you want.

I did it myself a couple of years when I was 30.

I mean, it's an extraordinary thing

because in many cultures to confess that you need

to even confide in someone is seen as a sign of weakness.

Here everybody does it and in no way frown upon it.

Mm-hmm.

It's kind of cool, 'cause I could... I really,

I could use somebody that I... I need somebody to talk to.

Have you ever done it?

Um...

I was a teenager and my parents

caught me with drugs and as part of the deal

to stay out of, uh... Stay out of trouble,

I saw a therapist briefly.

Mm-hmm.

Meet Marianna, my therapist.

Argentina has the distinction of being home

to more headshrinkers per capita than anywhere else

in the world.

So, Tony, what brought you here?

What brought me here?

Well, things have been happening, like I will find myself

in an airport, for instance, and I'll order

an airport hamburger.

It's an insignificant thing.

It's a small thing.

It's a hamburger.

- Yeah. - But it's not a good one.

Suddenly I look at the hamburger,

and I find myself in a spiral of depression.

Yes.

That can last for days.

George Orwell said something that really upset me

because he talked about human beings

are essentially tubes into which we shove food.

Mm-hmm.

And this is my job.

I travel around the world with these people,

and... and they turn on the cameras,

and then for a certain period of time,

my job is to shove food into my face.

And... And what's wrong with that?

Um... You have to eat.

♪ ♪

Wow, look at that.

They don't just mess around here, right?

It's beautiful.

Something... It's perfect food.

Wow. I mean, it's really unnecessarily delicious.

What kind of food is this?

Where is it rooted?

Between Italy and Spain, and then a bit

of the gaucho too, with the meat and the way he cooks it.

'Cause La Boca, this neighborhood, is very Italian.

They say that this is where tango was born,

in this little street, two blocks away here

called Caminito.

♪ ♪

And where does that come from emotionally?

The need for tango.

Why here?

Tango is extremely sad.

It's about love, about despair.

It's about poverty, and the dance, I think,

is one of the most elegant dances in the world.

You know, they barely move, and... and suddenly, they stop.

When they stop, you know, you tremble because you feel

that the man is sort of... inside of her almost,

and then he goes on.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

It's crushingly lonely.

I travel over 200 days a year.

♪ ♪

So I had this dream again that I've had as long

as I can remember.

I'm stuck in a vast, old Victorian hotel

with endless rooms and hallways,

trying to check out but I can't.

♪ ♪

I spend a lot of time in hotels, but this one is menacing

because I just can't leave it.

♪ ♪

And then there's another part to this dream always,

where I'm trying to go home,

but I can't quite remember where that is.

Hm, are you alone?

I'm alone in this dream, yes.

♪ ♪

In my heart, what I like of Buenos Aires

and Argentina is that we take time to sit down

and have lunch every day.

Tony.

Hungry?

Yeah, I'm always hungry.

And we finish lunch, and we stay at the table

for one hour more with our friends.

And then they go to work or they have a siesta.

Then nap.

And then a nap.

Very important.

Totally, I'm on board with that.

♪ ♪

On the outskirts of town in the roaring summer heat,

the fires still burn hot.

The tempting miasma of meat fills the mid-afternoon air.

On the parrilla, many parts of once-living things sizzle

and char for the pleasure of those Porteños

who remain in town, like Marianna, my new therapist.

Wow, what?

Wow.

Wow.

I don't think that's enough.

Meat is king, and fire, and we shall go hard

in honoring the flame.

My God, I don't know where to attack this first.

All of this, we call it achuras.

Achuras.

- Kidney... - Right.

...sausage, which is chorizo, black sausage,

which is morcilla here.

Mmm.

And this is the famous intestine, right?

Yes.

After a week or two here, even confirmed

carnivores like myself will fall to their knees

praying for a vegetable.

So is this normal, like, lunch for people?

Yes. Uh-hmm.

Tell me, what did you do during your time in Buenos Aires?

Ate a lot of meat.

Yes.

Do you have any vegetables in this country at all?

You know, there are a lot of vegetarian people here.

Yeah right.

And they are famished.

Chicken.

Chicken is a vegetable, isn't it?

Why is therapy so big in Argentina?

Because, I mean, the country also has this gaucho tradition,

a very macho tradition.

Yes, but that's what therapy is for.

They can do it there.

They can? So it's okay?

Yeah, it is okay.

See, as New Yorkers, we tell each other every...

You tell strangers all of your problems.

We overshare.

Well, people here don't overshare.

No.

I feel like Quasimodo, -the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Yeah?

If he stayed in nice hotel suites with high

thread-count sheets, that would be me.

I feel kind of like a freak, and I feel very isolated.

I communicate for a living, but I'm terrible

at communicating with people I care about.

I'm good with my daughter.

An eight-year-old is about my level

of communication skills, so that works out.

Oh, my God.

That was just the vegetable course.

Yes.

Later, I'm gonna have a nap.

That would be a Porteño thing to do? Like after...

A nap? It's more... It's much more...

It's more like people from the provinces...

- From the... - Right. Well, that's me.

I'm a country... no, I'm not really...

I'm not a country boy actually.

No, you're a city boy.

I'm a city boy, but I do like naps.

So regular people, all summer long

you're stuck in Buenos Aires, what do you do?

Go for a barbecue.

Go out for dinner.

♪ ♪

We have a lot of shows and concerts and music.

♪ No, no, no, no, no, no, no ♪

So what's the best season, the best time of year for you?

The best money, the best business.

Hot season in the summer.

- In the summer? - In the summer, yeah, yeah.

- Now? - Now, yeah, yeah, yeah.

'Cause it's tourists.

European people of the north, from the States, Canada.

It's cold now.

They come into the summer.

Right.

All hail the waiter, the career-server,

that great disappearing species of proud,

well-trained specialists.

Members of the service industry who trace their roots back

to the great hotels of Europe and beyond into history.

Those who remain like this man, Mario, we salute you.

So how many years in the dining room?

A lot?

Yeah. I start in... When I was 17-years-old

in a restaurant.

Seventeen?

Seventeen, yes.

The people who work in a kitchen one type of personality.

The people in the dining room, you need

to be more sociable.

I like very much to speak with all people

- -from the whole world. - Uh-hmm.

And I speak a little English, German.

I speak German very well, Italian, Portuguese.

A friend of mine who's worked in the business

a long time, he tells me whenever a man comes

into the restaurant with a woman, they never say,

"Oh, mister, so good to see you again."

No, no, no.

No, no, no, no.

You don't know if the woman is his wife

or someone else, and if you say, "Ah",

so good to see you again,"

they say "What do you mean again?"

I thought you said I've never... You've never been here."

I remember when I was 18-years-old, I was in a

restaurant working.

Comes in a man with his wife and say,

"Oh, how are you, Dr. Rodriguez?"

Right.

Always the road the nightclub.

Ooh.

Shit.

Woman want to kill him.

Right.

Big problem now.

No, of course.

No, never must... never must say anything.

If you're a cheap tipper, by the way,

or rude to your server, you are dead to me.

You are lower than whale feces.

Twenty, thirty years ago, waiting was a profession.

Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah.

Everybody learned certain skills.

If you need to take... Bone out a fish,

serve the fish at the tableside.

I make everything.

Right.

So a steak flambé.

Yeah.

No problem.

- No problem at all. - Right. Crepe suzette?

Crepe suzette, of course.

Every these things I do it, yeah.

All of this, of course.

How to fold the napkins.

Yeah, yeah, all that thing.

♪ ♪

I remember when I started in the dining room,

it was five captains, six waiters,

five assistant waiter, sommelier, assistant sommelier.

It was quite different.

Nowadays it's more simple.

All come in dish, they put them in here.

Right.

In France no more, you don't see it.

No more, no?

No, in the Michelin restaurants, you don't see it.

Nowadays, the people are more simple, yeah.

- -'Cause they're easy. - Yeah, yeah.

- Easy, very easy. - They say, "Give me red wine."

Give me white wine.

"No problem which one."

This work what I do as a waiter, slowly melting away.

I suppose 15 years or 20 years more, it's finished.

To the old style.

Cheers.

Cheers.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Who do Porteños see themselves as?

I mean, do they say "Well, I'm Argentine.

I'm from Argentina,"

or do they say, "Well, my people came from Italy"

or my people came from..."

We are from Spain.

The Porteño itself they think there is a...

From another planet.

Now I'm Porteño.

I'm from Buenos Aires.

I tell stories for a living.

I write books.

I make television.

A reasonable person does not believe that you

are so interesting that people will watch

you on television.

I think this is evidence of a narcissistic personality

disorder to start with.

Do you think you had a narcissistic personality

before you start to be in a...

Like, a public person, or after that?

Before. I think before, probably.

- Okay. - Yeah, I think always.

- So... - So nothing to be done.

♪ I know that the morning after ♪

♪ You become a monster that creeps me out ♪

♪ And things about to blow ♪

♪ A monster ♪

♪ Monster, monster ♪

♪ Monster, monster ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

It's a spread of so many thoughts in Buenos Aires.

You have, you know, the life of the musicians,

which is very important, you know, the tango,

all the artists.

Then you have sort of the corporate world,

which is always boring.

It... and on the other edge, you have the very

poor neighborhoods of these hundreds

of thousands of children that run behind the ball,

and they want to be soccer players.

And they have a dream, it's all they have,

and they know the faster they run,

the harder they hit that ball,

the better they move around it, maybe they will get it.

♪ ♪

♪ Monster, monster ♪

Chef, you do this all the time?

Like once a week.

This late at night?

Yes.

It's way too late for me.

Restaurant subculture, depending on where you are,

can revolve around a number of activities,

not all of them wholesome, in my experience.

The business is hard, the hours are long,

the camaraderie intense.

After a long day and night of work,

the mind turns... to soccer?

Okay, this is a distinguishing feature

I was frankly unprepared for.

So everyone here work for you?

Well, we have, like, two teams, you know?

He's the chef of Le Grill.

It's a parrilla.

Yes.

And close, like two blocks, we have Chila,

- And I'm the chef. - Of course.

And we have the two teams.

Right.

Chef Soledad Nardelli, along with her husband

and business partner owns and operates

Chila restaurant, where she still works the line.

We, as a country, we are ignorant

of our culture, traditions.

We have a lot of products, not only meat.

It's 1:00 A.M., and tonight it's a blood match

between the crews of Chila

and its sister restaurant, Le Grill.

We share a lot of products with Peru, Bolivia,

Brazil, Paraguay.

We have the big influence of immigrants,

like Germans, Swiss people, Netherlands.

So that is... that is our identity.

So many rich traditions.

Yeah.

Oh!

Do you want a drink?

What do you have?

We have Fernet.

Fernet.

We've been drinking a little bit.

Oh, good.

We are used to drink aperitifs.

Right.

The digestives.

It's good for your stomach.

- Right. - You know? You know?

So it's healthy.

Yes.

I ain't playing no soccer.

Alcohol and meat in tube form, however,

are more familiar to me.

The chorizos are homemade.

Forty percent pork, forty percent cow

and all the cuts are dry-aged, so... -Sweet.

So it's got some funk.

Yeah.

♪ ♪

Bravo.

I don't know whether it's the television

or the 30 years in the restaurant business,

I just... I never understood how normal people lived.

You know, when I was a chef, I worked all day,

I hung out all night with other cooks

other restaurant people.

You know, like, I really love, like, barbequing

on vacation in the backyard.

I love cooking for my daughter.

I like doing these really normal, mundane things

because I never got to do them before.

So you've been in the restaurant business a long time?

I started here in Buenos Aires.

Right.

Eighteen years ago.

Right, but wait a minute.

Cooking was not your original plan.

What was the... the original plan was... -Laws.

Law?

Yes.

But why would you do such a foolish thing?

I mean, there's no money in cooking most of the time.

Back then it was a business dominated entirely by men.

I was... I was not feeling good with myself, you know?

And I said, "Maybe I will... I'm going"

to be a really good lawyer, but I'm not going to be

happy in my life.

So right away you said, "Okay, I'm gonna cook,"

and you went to Bocuse?

To Institut Paul Bocuse?

Yes -I've been.

Yes.

Yes. It's a tough school.

Yeah.

Very, very traditional.

For me, the experience of France was really hard.

Oh, I can only imagine.

You know, Latin American woman from Argentina

speaking the... few French.

I cry all night.

Call my mom and she... She told me like,

"Sole, go on. Keep going.

Keep going. Keep going."

And I always said when... When I have the opportunity

of running my own kitchen I'm not going to repeat

any of the things that they did to me.

So till now, I... I did it okay, you know?

Good for you. You know, all these tough guys,

they're all big babies anyway.

Like, the first women who came in the kitchens

when I started, back when it was all men.

One woman would come in, and pretty soon

all the guys are, like, going crying to them

with their problems.

It's like, you know, "Please, be my mommy," you know?

"Don't be... you know, tell me what to do," you know?

What to do.

I think we're ready for chorizo

The delicious, delicious choripán

is an iconic street food around here for reasons

that are immediately obvious once you bite into one.

Oh, that's good.

I needed this badly.

♪ ♪

This is Argentinean style.

It's beer with Coke.

Beer... no, that's wrong, man.

No.

♪ ♪

I'm old for this.

♪ ♪

Who's here?

It's summer, right?

Well, that's a very interesting question.

♪ ♪

There's people that cannot go out for a holiday.

Right.

They stay here and then make the party happen

in their own neighborhood.

♪ ♪

Now how long is Carnival season here?

It goes on every weekend for a month.

A month?

Yeah.

Carnival is different in Argentina, decidedly different.

In every barrio in Buenos Aires

there are celebrations with over a hundred murgas,

as they're called, taking to the streets,

traveling from barrio to barrio by bus doing their thing.

So they're like neighborhood teams?

Yes, every neighborhood has one or two of these murgas.

And they start in one neighborhood

and then go to another, and then go to another.

It's healthy competition between every neighborhood.

♪ ♪

These guys are Murga Los Amantes.

They're from La Boca, which according

to the guidebook is an old industrial neighborhood

in the port district known for historic buildings

and no small amount of crime.

♪ ♪

Is it like a parade?

A block party?

It's a little bit of it.

- This is not like Rio Carnival. - Right.

Where you have a few parades with lots of money.

Right.

♪ ♪

You know, we do a lot of different scenes,

most of the meals or I drive sports cars,

I jump out of planes.

♪ ♪

But there are few things that terrify me.

Carnivals, I'm not a... I'm afraid of clowns.

♪ ♪

Ho-horrified.

People dancing, crowds.

You know, I've lived a long life without ever going

to Carnival in Rio or Mardi Gras.

I... I don't like it.

♪ ♪

There's something frightening about crowds too.

I mean, what if they all decide to do one thing

at the same time?

It starts as a party.

Five minutes later, it's like Nazi Germany.

Yeah.

♪ ♪

Well, it's a pity that you...

You couldn't show the old Carnival stuff.

Eh, I'm okay.

This is perfect for me.

I'm sitting down.

I'm drinking beer.

What is... It's all right, honestly.

♪ ♪

It has common roots with Brazilian Carnival

and Uruguay Carnival but in each place two different way.

In Brazil, it was more for the spectacle

and the lights, and here it's more

about the pride of, you know, of the neighborhood.

Anything for that?

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

This romanticism, this sadness, this love of sadness.

What was it about the history of Argentina

that allowed this to take root?

♪ ♪

From a difficult life.

From a life, you know, living in a little room

but always with the glory

and the dream of a night out, of the man who

has his beautiful hat for Saturday night.

♪ ♪

And then next morning, you know, reality is back.

Who's left in the city? Who else stays?

- Who else stays? - Well, construction workers.

Construction workers.

This building, it's a big one.

It's 18 stories.

Right.

It's in the middle of Capital Federal,

from the center of Buenos Aires.

So it's gonna be an expensive building.

So who's gonna live here?

I don't know.

People with money.

I mean, you know, how's the economy?

The economy, it's crazy. It's, uh... Some people doing good.

- Some people not doing so good. - Yeah.

The middle-class has been disappearing.

They tell me that everybody in Argentina

sees a psychologist or a psychiatrist.

Is this true?

- It's true, there's... - Everybody?

Yeah.

Well, not everybody.

People that can afford it, but... Right.

So let's go back to the first question I asked.

What brought you here?

I'd like to be happy.

I'd like to be happier.

I should be happy.

I have, you know, incredible luck.

Mm-hmm.

I'd like to be able to, you know,

look out the window and say, "Hey, life is good."

And you don't?

No.

I'm not gonna get a lot of sympathy from people, frankly.

I mean, I have the best job in the world.

Let's face it.

I go anywhere I want.

I do what I want.

Look, that guy over there loading sausages onto the grill?

That's... that's work.

This is not so bad.

It's all right.

It's not so bad.

I'll make it.

Yeah.

♪ ♪

♪ The clouds turn grey ♪

♪ They come and go ♪

If people work hard like they do

in construction it is expected

that they be well-fed, and in Buenos Aires,

well-fed means... yeah, you guessed it.

How often do they do this?

Once a week, on Fridays.

They used to do it every day,

but economic... you know, the meat.

Right.

Meat is really expensive.

It's expensive now.

♪ She ♪

♪ Glooms in the sky ♪

I always remember, you know,

walking down the street, and you smell the...

You smell it from the construction sites.

Yes, yeah.

- So most construction - sites they do like this?

Mm-hmm. Everyone.

♪ ♪

Nico, lead singer of Octafonic.

Like nearly every Porteño... Sweet.

He knows good beef and where to find it.

Mm. It's good.

You word hard and eat a big hunk of meat.

It's, you know, from the low chain of the meat.

But it really has a lot of fat, and it's...

Right. Good for you.

Yeah.

He says that we need some wine, red wine.

Yeah, right?

I saw some construction sites that they have it.

They... they serve wine?

Yeah. Yeah.

- Man. - I guess the owners of this construction

Especially are strict about it.

- I'd be a little nervous. - Yeah, of course.

- Guys up on the top floor... - Fifty meters... yeah.

So where are most of these guys from?

We... we got one from Paraguay here.

Another from Argentina.

From Buenos Aires or from outside of Buenos Aires?

Usually from inside, from the provinces.

And how long has the job lasted?

I was asking.

It started one year and a half ago.

Wow.

Yeah.

- That's a long time. - Mm-hmm.

How much work is there? A lot? A little?

I mean, after this, another job?

Yeah, I guess they jump from construction to construction.

So they're working regular always?

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

It's hard to get back to work after having a...

Yeah, I just wanna go home and sleep.

Mm-hmm.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

I'm flying out, you know, in just a few hours.

And you're going now next to Rome?

It's a... such a beautiful city.

No, next Brazil.

Then to Japan.

Nashville.

Vietnam.

Houston.

♪ ♪

You know, like, there's the evil cheeseburger

that sets me off.

Yeah.

The evil hamburger.

Suddenly I'm super depressed for days.

It's like that with the good stuff too.

I have a couple of happy minutes there

where I'm thinking, "Ah, life is pretty good."

♪ ♪

This is cool.

I'm enjoying this.

Yeah. It's like the movies, but cheaper.

Yeah, right?

The pilot of the airplane saying hi to the kids.

Wow.

- What's in the box, man? - What's in there?

Oh, here we have amaro Don Bairo, which is like

workman's bitter.

Uh-huh.

It's a kind of vermouth.

Yeah, I'll have some of that.

So how did you do in therapy?

My therapy?

Oh, I feel all better now.

Yeah?

All better.

What do you think?

How... how... how... I mean, is there hope for me?

Uh, wow.

Ooh, boy.

Oh, that doesn't sound promising.

I think what is good is that you start thinking...

Or keep thinking about what's wrong in your life.

What do you want to change?

And especially what do you feel you can't change.

I was kind of hoping for a prescription

for, like, morphine.

Was this an unreasonable You should tell me before.

I think you should... you should keep doing therapy, Tony.

Yeah, me too. I... You're probably right.

Yes. Yes.

♪ ♪

I love staying in Buenos Aires in summer

when the streets are empty.

I love this city.

I was born here this cute metropolis

where a lot of cultures melt.

People from all Latin America, people from Asia,

people from Europe.

The personality of Buenos Aires is made

from the melt of cultures.

When I get back to New York, I'll tell you,

when I get off that plane I'm gonna make myself

a big [...] salad.

Excuse me, kid, but... Sorry for the language.

♪ ♪

All right, what do you say we get some sausages?

Yeah.

♪ ♪