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On Monday before Labor Day, maybe the year’s slowest night for restaurants, new Argentine steakhouse Graciela was still turning tables at 10 p.m.
Unlike most TikTok-driven flavor-of-the-month frenzies, Graciela’s instantaneous popularity is 100% deserved. Vegan propaganda aside, New Yorkers crave red meat above all other foods.
Graciela delivers the most exciting, overseas-inspired beef since Cote taught us to love marinated Korean short ribs nine years ago.
Chef/owner Pablo Rivero runs two renowned Buenos Aires places, including Michelin-starred Don Julio. He opened Graciela, his first restaurant outside Argentina, with New York brothers Adam and Alex Saper. The Greenwich Village eating scene might never be the same.
Graciela’s dining room seats 120 and a dozen more at the bar flow through the bustling, wide-windowed corner of Greenwich Avenue and Bank Street. The rowdy, L-shaped venue smoothly marries the styles of rustic Argentina and historic Greenwich Village.
Wood-beam ceilings, hand-plastered walls and surfaces of stone and marble are warmly lit by ceiling and wall fixtures. Upholstered banquettes partially offset the happy din from tables, filled with as many women as men. All genders chuckle over floor crew who steam-iron tablecloths with Olympian dexterity.
A pair of giant grills set along one wall of the front dining room are the restaurant’s heart and soul — an eight-foot long, Argentine-made parilla and a Spanish Josper oven. They provide ten feet of live-fire cooking surfaces beneath a smoke-sucking hood.
To man the parilla, Rivero shipped in a half-dozen team members from Buenos Aires. They produce flavor magic without sauces or marinades — only sea salt and the charcoal’s distinctive smoke.
The charcoal from the hardwood Quebracho tree imparts only a mild char, but the pleasure lies between the crusts. (Starters in most categories are priced in the $20s. Main meat courses run from $39–$82 and are large enough for two.)
Luscious choices such as entrana (skirt steak), Italian-inspired Milanese “Napolitana” and, most especially, center-cut ribeye thrill diners every night. They prove that steak needn’t be dry-aged to taste great. (Only one cut — a $180, 30-oz. bone-in ribeye, which I didn’t try — gets the 30-day treatment.)
Argentine beef is prized for its rich marbling and tender texture. The menu’s only dish sourced from the country, 16-oz. center-cut ribeye, is a masterpiece on both counts. The mineral- and umami-rich cut, served in three wedges, was as supple on the tongue as pricier Wagyu blends elsewhere and more flavorful than many.
Fresh and aged chimichurri sauces amplified the intensity of chewy, North Carolina short ribs and skirt steak from South Dakota. Among hearty starters, standouts include fiana, a provolone-cheese and chickpea tart which emerged from the oven with a vivid, paprika tint. Oregano, coriander and Argentine chili lend strong complexions to spiral pork sausage.
Crusty papas fritas come with irresistibly sweet and sour, house-made ketchup.
Almost everyone orders ice cream for dessert, including dreamy-creamy dulce de leche and the densest chocolate outside Dubai.
In recent years, all-American steakhouses such as Smith & Wollensky, Sparks and Wolfgang’s have been joined by foreign-born: Cuerno (Mexican), La Tete D’Or (French), Nusr-Et (Turkish), Double Knot (Japanese) and Fogo de Chao (Brazilian).
Argentina missed the train until Graciela roared in on the express track. All aboard!
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