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What a Real Argentine Asado Is: The Ritual, Timing and Order of the Grill
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An Argentine asado is not a barbecue. They both involve meat and fire, and that is where the similarity ends.
At a barbecue, food is cooked quickly over high heat and the food is the objective. At an asado, everything is cooked slowly over low heat and the food is the excuse. The thing that lasts three or four hours is not the cooking: it is the gathering.
That is the hardest difference to explain, and the one that explains everything.
The first thing an asador does is not put the meat on the grill. It is to light the fire and wait.
In Argentina, wood is traditionally used, especially quebracho, an extremely hard wood that produces dense, long-lasting embers. Charcoal is also used because it is more practical and quicker, although purists will tell you it is not the same. And they are right: wood adds an aroma that charcoal cannot provide.
The key is that the meat is never placed directly over the fire. It goes over the embers, and the embers are taken from the fire as they are needed. The fire is kept burning separately, constantly fed, and the embers are moved from it with a shovel.
That is why an asado takes so much time. Before the first piece of meat even goes on the grill, around forty minutes have already passed.
The meat is placed a considerable distance from the embers and the heat needs to stay low. The classic test is simple: if you can hold your hand above the grill while counting to six or seven, the temperature is about right. If you have to pull it away immediately, it is too hot.
A rack of ribs can spend two and a half or three hours on the grill. And you leave it alone. Turn it once, when the time is right, and let it cook.
There is a phrase that sums up the entire craft: you do not rush an asado. Anyone in a hurry is making something else. It may be delicious, but it will not be an asado.
This is the part that surprises anyone who has never experienced one. An asado is not a single dish: it is a sequence, and it reaches the table in stages.
First, the chorizos and morcillas. They cook quickly and are served before anything else, often in bread as choripán. It is the way to get everyone eating while the rest continues cooking on the grill.
Then the achuras. Offal, essentially: sweetbreads, chinchulines and kidney. Properly cooked sweetbreads, golden on the outside and creamy inside, with a squeeze of lemon, are for many people the best part of the entire asado.
Next, the provoleta. A round of provolone cheese grilled until golden on the outside and melted inside, with oregano and oil. It is eaten with bread, straight from the dish.
And finally, the meat. Ribs or tira de asado, vacío, entraña and bife. Everything is sliced at the table and served on a board.
Time passes between each round. That time is the asado.
Chimichurri is the classic accompanying sauce: parsley, garlic, oregano, ground chilli, vinegar and oil. It is used alongside the meat, not as a marinade, and certainly not to cover up its flavour.
And here is a warning every Argentine will repeat: good meat only needs salt. Coarse salt or grilling salt, added before the meat goes onto the grill. No marinades, spice mixes or sweet sauces. If the meat needs to be disguised, the problem is the meat.
A traditional asado does not need elaborate sides. A simple salad, bread and little else. The meat leads and everything else is there not to get in the way.
Malbec, almost always. It is Argentina’s signature grape and works particularly well with grilled meat: it has enough body to stand up to the fat and smoke, with rounded tannins that do not fight against the food.
A structured red with some ageing is a safe choice. A wine that is too light gets lost beneath the flavour of the grill.
From the moment the fire is lit until someone asks for a coffee: around four to five hours. In Argentina, an asado starts at lunchtime and finishes when it finishes.
If you are meeting at two and need to be somewhere else at four, you are not going to an asado. You are going to eat meat, which is a perfectly respectable thing to do.
Because this is exactly what we do, with the wood, the timing and the order you have just read about. That is the entire difference between a restaurant that serves meat and a parrilla.
At Social Point in Ibiza, the embers are lit every day and they are never rushed. You can see our menu, book a table or simply come and experience it for yourself: we are open Monday to Sunday, from 13:00 to 02:00.
Of course, if you are in a hurry, let us know and we will make you something quick. But you will be missing half of it.