Ushuaia

Restaurant at the end of the world

Today I am going to attempt to do justice to a story that I have tried and failed to tell for over a decade. It’s about a restaurant… that is quite literally at the end of the world.

The story involves dwarf trees, carcasses hanging off the back of yachts, massive steaks and a ninja with a blade. So buckle up and let’s see if I can finally get this one over the finishing line.

If you follow a map South, and I mean as far south as the tarmac will take you, you end up in a pretty special place. Now obviously I’m not talking about that white bit of ice right at the bottom of your drinks globe. Because unsurprisingly I am neither a billionaire nor an exiled weatherman. 

But come up just the smallest amount and you‘ll find yourself right at the very tip of South America. And my goodness is it astonishing. It’s wild and untouched. Gale-force winds blow for days at a time and when it stops blowing it invariably starts to snow. It’s so bad that nothing grows more than 4 feet tall and everything that does get that tall faces east.

If you want to know what the end of the world feels like, you go to Ushuaia. It’s the sort of place where you would post your final farewells, before heading out in search of the lost city of Atlantis. 

In fact, I had a chat with my dad about this, who told me about someone he knew who used to crew on a charter yacht that operated out of Ushuaia. It was so cold and salty that when they loaded the boat up with supplies they would simply hang whole sheep carcasses off the back of the boat and head to sea. 

Now take a moment to appreciate that I am not talking about Victorian explorers here. These people have mobile phones and the internet. But that is only half the story. 

Crossover onto the high street and suddenly the town is overflowing with posh bistros. Fancy coffee shops and more North Face stores than I have ever seen. 

I love these sorts of towns. Stepping off points to the unknown. The only downside with these sorts of places is that they’re not cheap. I’m sure you can appreciate what it must cost to ship a pallet of North Face gear all that way.

So instead of dining at one of those nice bistros. You, like myself, would most likely end up sipping on packet noodles back at your hostel. But there is another way. 

You see after being on the road for some time you start to pick up on what other people are doing and this can first make you feel pretty uncomfortable. Like watching them eat in places that would certainly leave the likes of you and me with bowel prolapsing, holiday-ending diarrhoea.  

And yet, as the days go by, and the sight of stale bread and packet noodles starts to wear thin… those eateries begin to look mighty delicious. Now you don’t find these sorts of places on the high street and you certainly don’t find them accepting American Express. 

In Ushuaia, that meant heading down the wrong end of the main road over puddles that I would prefer not to elaborate on. Remember this was still a gamble that could have gone very badly wrong. 

But on the days that it doesn’t. And by that, I mean not ending up on an intravenous drip with a steady supply of refrigerated toilet paper. On those days, I am always reminded of that restaurant not only at the end of the main road, but indeed the end of the world.

For the record, after 15 years the place is most likely long gone but let’s ignore that little detail.

Filling the window front was an entire sheep cooking over an open fire. Which, having travelled the length of Argentina was nothing new. 

But what caught my eye was the steady stream of construction workers collecting vast amounts of takeaways. Between them, the lamb spit and its questionable hygiene I knew that this was what I had been looking for. 

Inside, we found a wall of drinks fridges and a bar counter. However, behind the bar counter was the largest hot plate and extractor hood I had ever seen and right next to that was the lamb roasting over the fire.

We sat down at the counter with two beers and immediately found ourselves in a situation that had been plaguing us for weeks. You see the man behind the counter may have been a ninja with a blade. He may have even been a Michigan-starred chef. But my goodness, was he shit at languages. 

He also wasn’t much interested in time wasters. So in the 3 or so minutes it took us to decide how we would handle the situation, he turned around and promptly cooked 6 steaks and 10 bacon and ham sandwiches. On his own.

It was like watching Hell’s Kitchen… but in Spanish.

By the time he came back to us we wasted no time and began waving our hands around like two 6-year-old air traffic controllers. I pointed at the lamb and without missing a beat, he sliced off a chunk of meat that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a hotel buffet.

If I hadn’t looked confused before, I most certainly did now. 

‘What was I supposed to do with that?’ I thought to myself.

Was I supposed to share it with The Missus? Was I supposed to share it with the entire restaurant? Or was it indeed a whole roast plated up just for me?

More Spanish followed and obviously he was asking whether I wanted potatoes and three veg with that.

But since my limited Spanish prevented me from elaborating on my lack of fondness for artichoke I simply replied:

“Moi Bien.”

But this didn’t sit well with our maestro. Clearly the sight of a gringo staring down a roast for one without a veggie in sight wasn’t going to earn him his five-star rating. 

Not that such things existed back then. 

Nonetheless, he glanced around until he saw something that pleased him. 

“Yes,” he must have thought. “This will do the job.”

He picked up a tray of sliced bread and added it to my ensemble. 

“Perfect.”

And it was perfect. Over the next two days, The Missus and I ate every meal in that smoky dive and consequently worked our way through everything on offer. 

Now you may remember how last time I wrote that I wasn’t exactly queuing up to make the trip down to Solitare just for the apple strudel. This time however I would wholly recommend travelling to Ushuaia for the lamb. 

The only problem is I’m not sure you’ll still find it. Ushuaia however is still there and that is definitely worth the trip.