Laura Catena, fourth-generation vintner and managing director of Catena Zapata Winery in Mendoza, Argentina, was always opposed to the idea of a winery restaurant—largely because she couldn’t devote the time needed to make it the best in the region. That all changed when her head winemaker, Alejandro Vigil—who, along with his wife, María Sance, owns Mendoza’s top restaurant, Casa Vigil—made an offer.
“We were starting construction on a new vermouth distillery and hospitality center, and he proposed the idea of adding a restaurant that he would manage,” Catena says. “I agreed on one condition: that he would make wine the star of the dining experience.” Vigil loved the idea, and Angélica Cocina Maestra, the world’s inaugural wine-first restaurant, was born.
While the name honors Angélica Zapata, Catena’s grandmother, everything else is a tribute to wine. Place settings in the intimate glass-walled dining room overlooking the vineyards are composed of an elegant arrangement of Riedel Vinum stems, setting the stage for 10 wine courses, each paired with a dish. Sommeliers, not servers, tend to the table as the menu reveals Mendoza’s terroir, glass by glass and plate by plate, through the wine and the cuisine’s locally sourced ingredients.
Catena promises a rotating selection of wine flights and pairing menus based on seasonality, but to start, the two wine-menu offerings are the Angélica, a traditional pairing experience, and the Rollercoaster, an unorthodox offering that switches back and forth between white and red wines.
Both flights are accompanied by a meal of purely Andean influences. Everything on the menu comes from regional farms and producers, much of it from the winery’s own gardens. Small culinary details, such as the trio of infused salts harvested from Catena’s Andean salt mine or the pea-flour-ravioli dish crafted from hand-ground peas cultivated on site, lend complexity and verve to each pairing. The fresh trout gravlax, served with fennel in three textures, is a bold match for the winery’s Tinto Histórico blend of Malbec and Petit Verdot, while Catena’s beguiling Vino Natural Ancestral Moscatel sets the stage for a finale of cheese and confitures.
Catena is quick to point out that this is not a meat-centric menu like so many other Argentine restaurants—and also that she’s now full of ideas for the restaurant she never wanted. “My ears are gigantically open,” she says. “Alejandro is the same way—we love bouncing ideas around. Anything is possible, just as long as we make it the best.”
