Our Latest Take on Mendoza Winery Restaurants
With each passing year, more and more Mendoza winery restaurants open for wine enthusiasts and foodies to indulge themselves but, in addition to the sheer quantity of wineries (over 650!) in this fantastic wine region, the range of eating options could be somewhat overwhelming. However, using the following “filters” may help you choose where to eat:
- How much would you like to spend?
- What kind of lunch would you like?
- Eat at a famous winery or fly under the radar?
- Are you driving or will you have a driver for the day?
- Will it be the last visit of your day among the vines?
You could just stick your finger on a Google map or take a friend’s recommendation (or ours?) but maybe try the list of filters below that helps narrow your options.
1. How much do you want to spend?
So how much will eating at a range of Mendoza winery restaurants cost you? Well, much will depend on filters 2 and 3 below, but as a ballpark figure take 25 USD per head as a starting point for an a la carte dish with a glass of wine, running up to 120 USD, or more for pairing menus. The type of winery and style of meal will determine this, as will the wines involved if you choose a pairing menu. Most wineries will offer several levels of tasting menus and also a la carte, so within a couple or a group of people, you can mix and match the options.
Note: Happily, foreign credit cards are now being processed at near to the “blue” exchange rate so you can save yourself about 40% on the official peso exchange rate. This saving was only previously available if you changed strong currencies into Argentine cash at exchange houses (which is still worth doing so you have some paper money in your pocket). But now with your credit cards being afforded almost the same rate your lunches (and wine purchases for home) will be a little cheaper.
2. What kind of lunch would you prefer?
Having flexibility is very important we feel as one member of your party may want a full 7-dish pairing menu with an extensive flight of premium wines and another person just one dish and with a glass or two. Luckily a lot of places cater for this. At some of the very prestigious wineries it might be that options are very limited and that you may only be able to choose between a 4-dish and 7-dish tasting menu for example, but it is rare that such limited choice exists.
Sometimes extensive tasting menus have 2 or 3 sweet dishes at the end, this is obviously not good for diabetics, or people on specific diets and may seem a waste to someone who favours savoury dishes. When presented with this issue we found that the response of the restaurant varied. Several of the places we visited were happy to modify their dishes on the fly while at others, it was more a case of “take it or leave it”, although they didn’t put it quite like that of course! So, having a good a la carte menu alongside fixed pairings is the best of both worlds in our opinion.
Multi-dish Pairing Menus
These are a set number of courses with set wines, between 4 and 9 dishes generally. The accompanying wine will have been selected by the sommelier which, in theory, should match very well with the flavours of the dish. I say “in theory” as in some cases the wine didn’t seem 100% correct to us as there were a number of sweeter dishes that were paired with dry reds.
As I mentioned earlier sometimes the last 2 (or even 3) dishes may be sweeter and really should be paired with off-dry or sweet wines, but in most cases, they were not, so that’s something to keep an eye on. The power of the wine should match the power of the dish and a menu like this is a great way to practice judging this and exploring taste combinations. As you might imagine there are some great meat dishes in Argentina that pair very well with the abundant bold, red wine.
As you might imagine these are the most expensive types of lunches with prices starting at around 45 to 50 USD, and ranging up to well over 100 USD a head. Make sure the menus you are choosing include the wine you like/want as some do not even include wine!
A La Carte Menus
This gives you more flexibility but obviously lacks the “ceremony” and planning of an extensive pairing menu. But the fact is that many people do not want to eat several courses and drink lots of wine, and the “a la carte” menu will give you the option to order just a steak with a couple of glasses of wine for example. I say just, but the steaks in Argentina are typically huge! As we mentioned before it may be that your partner wants the paring menu and you want a steak, but you can also try their dishes, so we think it is a great combo and something we have done in the past.
Whichever style of meal you choose, having a wide range of options is always best so we suggest going for a winery restaurant that offers a pairing menu plus an a la carte in order to maximize the permutations.
3. Eat at a famous winery or fly under the radar?
With Mendoza winery restaurants, as with Mendoza wine tours and tastings in general, prices will vary considerably according to the perceived prestige and customer demand for a particular place. Famous places know they can charge more, and get away with it, as lots of people want to tick it off their bucket lists.
Catena Zapata is a case in point. This very famous winery has been instrumental in Argentina’s evolution from a producer of bulk, low-quality plonk to premium, and super-premium wine. The tours and tastings are very popular, hence tricky to secure and expensive compared to many. So if you guessed that the restaurant is going to be quite expensive, you would be right!
We have no doubt that the lunch is well prepared and very high quality, but there is only one option (so the take it or leave it approach), and that is a 10-dish menu, and it doesn’t come with wine automatically. You will need to choose from a wine menu at Catena. The lunch costs around 80 USD, plus the cheapest wine flight costs around 35 USD (the most expensive vertical tasting flight costs 1600 USD, yes you read that correctly!) so you can see you are spending at least 125 USD per head on the “standard” product.
Lagarde Winery is an example of more moderate prices and plenty of choices. Obviously, it doesn’t have the cachet that Catena has but the restaurant was full on both occasions we visited, so they must be doing something right! With 3 types of pairing menus on offer and a wide range of a la carte dishes, plus a menu of wine flights (degustaciones) we thought this winery had designed things well.
4. Are you driving or will you have a driver for the day?
You may well want to drive yourselves around while in Mendoza, perhaps you are a group of friends and plan on renting a car with one of you as the designated driver? If so please remember to plan your route carefully and make the necessary reservations well ahead of time for both eating and tours/tastings, especially in the November to April period as Mendoza gets very busy with not only foreign tourists but also Argentines. Remember that the wine region of Mendoza covers a large area, and while from the centre of town to Maipu it is only 20 minutes or so by car, the area of Lujan de Cuyo can be 40 minutes in certain traffic and parts of the Uco Valley are 90 minutes away. So it is very important to plan driving times between all the stops.
If you take a tour with us we will plan your day and make all the necessary arrangements and then everyone on the tour can fully enjoy the wine on offer to their heart’s content. The other main advantage of taking a wine tour is that you have an expert local wine guide all day, obviously, that comes at a cost, but for a couple, this may not be much more expensive than renting a car and paying for insurance and fuel.
5. Will it be the last visit of your day among the vines?
If the restaurant is your last visit of the day you should consider a place where you can kick back for a while after you eat, maybe wandering the vines and generally chilling out. If it’s a place that is the second of three visits during the day then you will be on the clock and there won’t be time for wandering around afterwards. Several times we have eaten and then spent 2 or 3 hours extra at the winery to wander the vines, sit sipping a glass in the sun with a view, chat with other clients and staff etc.
Alfa Crux in the Uco Valley is a great example of a number of Mendoza winery restaurants where you can relax and enjoy the views for hours so take this into account when planning your day. We have had clients abandon the third visit as they were enjoying the second so much and they didn’t want to move!
We have only mentioned a few restaurants by name here, there are so many more, but using some of the guidance above you can choose the right ones for you, and feel free to ask for our advice of course. Start Googling now and your mouth will start to water!
