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It’s an evening in February, 7:30
p.m., and the sun in Buenos Aires has yet to set. From the 22nd
floor of our suite in the Sheraton Hotel and Convention Center, we
look out on an eastern sky where the reflected sunlight on the Rio
de la Plata, the wide South American estuary that empties into the
Atlantic, is just becoming visible. In the distance, sail boats
bob blissfully, background to an old freighter being pulled by a
little tugboat into port. Further out, a gigantic cruise ship
gracefully glides towards the shore. It will rest at anchor
through the night, its lights all a-twinkle like a star-filled
castle. When we awake in the morning, it will be gone.
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Directly
below us, cars speed along the highway; a seemingly abandoned freight
train rests on the railroad tracks; there’s an old customs house
catching the low sun’s rays and piles of loading materials and idle
cranes on the long, bending docks. Turning to the window facing north,
we see rows of railroad tracks, plazas and parks, apartment buildings,
office towers, and industrial plants merging into a jumbled urban
landscape. We are on the very edge of this magical city where it’s
summer in winter and so many things seem upside down.
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With its back
to the estuary, the Sheraton complex enjoys a commanding presence in
downtown Buenos Aires. The entire city spreads out before the
24-story, 739-room Hotel and Convention Center and the adjoining
23-story, 181-room Park Tower, part of Starwood’s Luxury Collection.
The two properties are distinct yet connected. Restaurants and lounges
are easily accessible to guests at either hotel. Moreover both share
a fitness center whose size and range of facilities is exceptional for
a downtown hotel. An indoor spa with massage rooms, sauna,
glass-walled gym and lap pool compliments an outdoor area of tennis
courts and trapezoid-shaped swimming pool surrounded by chaises and
outdoor dining sets. At the level of the trees in the Plaza Fuerza
Aérea Argentina across the way, it provides a perfect view of the
iconoclastic Georgian clock tower, a gift from England in 1916. Were
this landmark and other sights of a great city not literally at the
Sheraton’s doorstep, one might content him or herself with the
splendid offerings of the hotel and never leave the premises. But as
it happens, the delights of downtown Buenos Aires: the extensive green
plazas, broad boulevards, and shop-lined pedestrian avenues are right
across the way.
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On a tour of
the Convention Center with the lovely, 29-year-old Cecilia Bauzá, who
handles public relations for the Sheraton, we get a sense of the
property’s vastness, its meeting rooms and ballrooms that can
accommodate more than 3,000 people, the interconnected hallways,
stairways, elevator banks -- all meticulously maintained. “It is so
spacious,” says Cecilia. “Even though there may be thousands of people
in the Sheraton, you never feel the clutter or the crowds.”
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And there was
a substantial crowd. The international IBM convention was but one of
the ongoing gatherings that took place during our stay, many of their
attendees staying at the Sheraton. Smartly uniformed pilots and flight
attendants from Iberia, Air France, Alitalia, and Air Canada could be
seen briskly walking across the gleaming, capacious lobby at all
hours. And then there were the leisure travelers at the start or
conclusion of cruises to South American ports or simply visiting
Argentina during its busy summer season. Yet, as Cecilia said, there
was never a sense of mass tourism, no long lines at registration or
check-out desks, no piles of luggage filling the entryway, no crowds
waiting for the elevators – and this despite the fact that both hotels
were full. |
The young
public relations official came to Buenos Aires from a small city in
the province of Cordoba. “My family still lives there, in the center
of Argentina,” Cecilia told us. “We are a typical Argentine mix of
Spanish, Italian and French,” she added. “The Italian branch is from
the south, Sicily and Palermo. Every Sunday we’d go to my Italian
grandmother’s house for pasta.”
While nothing
can compare to her grandmother’s cooking, Cecilia has found an
excellent substitute on-site in the Sheraton’s festive Cardinale
restaurant, a popular destination for porteños (people from Buenos
Aires) where southern Italian specialties from pastas to pizzas to
prosciutto are offered buffet style in an informal trattoria-style
setting.
Virtually
around the lobby corner is the more formal Aljobe whose kitchen
focuses on typical Argentine preparations and whose rich décor in
shades of ocher, rose and plum with original oil paintings of the
Argentine countryside hanging on the walls -- they all depict scenes
from a book by the well-known writer Martin Firriro -- evokes a
traditional mood. A huge hotel and conference center may be right
outside the door, but seated a table in this open and at the same time
intimate space, such a world seems very far away.
Following an
amuse bouche of paté with cheese and caviar, our party of three
selected different dishes so each could sample different specialties
like the salad of avocado with tiny tomato tartar, sautéed shrimps and
crawfish; a briny oyster soup with lots of garlic; and a red mullet
salad in a tangy vinaigrette accompanied by ratatouille. For entrées,
one of us had the delicate Pacific salmon from Chile, while the other
two opted for the famed Argentinian Angus beef. Tender enough to be
cut with a butter-knife, the grilled steaks were served with
chimichuri, a powerful mixture of parsley, chili, oil and vinegar,
bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, and olives.
We had our
first Malbec at this dinner, a 2002 vintage produced by Ricardo
Santos, a well known wine-maker for nearly fifty years. This staple of
Argentinean grapes produces a dry, yet fruity and not full bodied
wine. We thought it was excellent.
The Aljobe staff |
Diners from
Korea |
Our dinner at Aljobe was enlivened by a party of Koreans who were celebrating the
birthday of one of the women. After her candle-lit cake arrived to the
singing of “Happy Birthday,” everyone in the dining room burst into
spontaneous applause. She then stood up and with the utmost
graciousness, thanked everyone and explained that her group had
arrived on the QE II that day. Subsequently, she personally delivered
a piece of cake to each diner. Later still, another of her group, a
younger woman and her father, came over to our table. He is a
scientist, she told us, and she is accompanying him on this trip to
South America. The modesty and gentle demeanor of these people added a
welcome and memorable note to our trip.
After a few
days at the Hotel and Conference Center, we crossed its vast lobby and
passed through glass doors into the more intimate and deluxe Park
Tower. A few days before, we’d come by to witness the press conference
held by President Chavez of Venezuela, in town for an official visit.
The Park Tower is the kind of place where visiting presidents hold
press conferences. It is also the kind of place where movie stars,
business tycoons, sporting figures, and the like are to be found. And
Julian Valla has seen them all.
The corpulent
and exuberant chief concierge who started his career as doorman in
1996 has hundreds of stories and delights in telling them. A favorite
concerns the time Brad Pitt stayed in the Park Tower’s Presidential
Suite. “It was in 1997,” Julian told us. “Seven Years in Tibet
was being filmed in Mendoza which is 700 kilometers from here; some
parts of the movie were actually filmed in Buenos Aires. One day Brad
Pitt came back from Mendoza with seven dogs. Guess who he put in
charge of walking them? There I was walking the boulevards of Buenos
Aires holding the leashes to seven dogs. After a while, I was down to
one white dog, the one he named Blanco Canguras. He’d shipped the
others to his home in the United States, but he kept this one with him
for the rest of the time he was in Argentina.”
Julian has
welcomed former president Bill Clinton, the legendary soccer star Pele,
Luciano Pavarotti, and more rock stars, movie stars, politicos, and
CEOs than he can remember. “I do all the arranging from restaurant
reservations, to tango shows, to hiring helicopters and private boats.
The hotel is the attraction for all these people. The rooms, the
suites, the butler service make it the best.”
Designed
to spoil even the most exacting of guests, the Park Tower’s butler service has a
charming individual at the ready 24 hours a day to provide whatever
personal service one requires from unpacking a suitcase to pressing a
garment to shining a pair of shoes. It is one of the hotel’s most
distinctive features. So is the Crystal Garden, its bi-level sky-lit
dining room whose glass wall overlooks downtown Buenos Aires.
Cecilia
joined us for breakfast in the Crystal Garden where an elaborate
buffet displays all the standard choices as well as Argentine
specialties that include exotic tropical fruits, flavored honeys and
butters, and dulce de leche, milk cooked with sugar till the
sugar burns and the combination becomes a thick, creamy mixture the
color of caramel. Until we had it at the Crystal Garden, dulce de
leche was just an ice cream flavor. Now we know the real thing,
and it is irresistible.
As public
relations manager, Cecilia is responsible for promoting the Sheraton
and Park Tower’s unique aspects. Among them is the Crystal Garden’s
chef, Samantha Leske. “As a woman, Samy is a rarity in Buenos Aires.
She’s the first woman chef at the Sheraton,” Cecilia said. “I’ve
gotten her exposure on television, in newspapers and magazines. She’s
quite a celebrity.”
In her toque
blanc, Samy appears every inch the chef, her gender and youth
notwithstanding. Of German descent, direct and friendly in manner,
Samy told us her original ambition was to be an astronaut. “But by the
time I finished my secondary school, I knew I wanted to be a cook
although I had no idea about hotels and these kinds of kitchens.”
After
training in France and Italy, Samy returned to Buenos Aires and began
working in the Sheraton training program. “It involved more than
cooking. I had to studying hygenics and chemistry, buying and
management. But I knew this was
where I wanted to be.”
Overseeing a
staff of seven, the young, ebullient chef with a decided preference
for Mediterranean cuisine is taking advantage of a growing interest in
fine dining. “The interest has always been there,” she said, “and
Buenos Aires has always had a reputation for good food. But now people
are more interested in what they are eating and drinking. We have to
be prepared for that.”
Samy claims
to have been inspired by her mother and grandmother. “Both were great
cooks. When I was little, my grandmother would stand me on a little
stool and teach me how to cook. When I decided to become a cook,
however, my parents were taken back. But they love it now.”
She enjoys
going to the market to see what is available and delights in designing
the Crystal Garden’s menu, changing it three times a year. “I love to
prepare leg of lamb,” she told us. “I marinate it for 48 hours with
rosemary, garlic, lemon and lavender. Then it is roasted in the oven
with a little white wine and presented with a salad of watercress and
roasted crunchy potatoes.”
The lamb is a
feature of Samy’s winter menu, but as it was February, the middle of
the summer, we unfortunately could not try her signature dish. Still
we found no cause for complaint in the mesculin salad with camembert
and turkey, blackberries and cranberries – the tartness of the berries
a delightful counterpoint to the greens and strong creamy cheese; the
seafood tain – shrimps, clams, and mussels with microgreens; delicate
ravioli in a light tomato basil sauce; rich and creamy leek soup with
chopped chives; and the superb medallion of tenderloin with roasted,
unpeeled potatoes, crispy on the outside and soft within, topped with
sautéed onions and chives. And who could argue with chocolate mousse
and hazelnuts atop rice pudding in a martini glass or a globe of
vanilla ice cream over wedges of cooked apple?
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Cecilia Bauzá
handles public relations for the complex |
Chef Samantha
Leske has become a local celebrity |
The
level of luxury is so pervasive at the Park Tower that the financial
trauma that beset Argentina at the end of 2001, just a few months
after the World Trade Center bombing, seems like a bad dream. “The
crisis seems to be fading into part of a sad history,” Cecilia said.
“Things are picking up; there is a sense of hope.”
But, she
added, although the economy seems on the way to recovery, there is
still great need. The peso which had once been equal to the dollar was
worth roughly 33 cents at the time or our visit, a bonanza for
shopping Americans but indicative of the hardships that persist.
The Starwood
organization, according to Cecilia, is deeply involved in programs to
alleviate economic distress. “Since our program of Sweet Sleeper
Beds was inaugurated, all the hotels’ beds have been changed. The
old ones, all in excellent condition, have gone to institutions that
care for people in need,” she told us. “We donate food, clothes,
furniture, products that we don’t need but can be used. We contribute
to the soup kitchens in the city. We’re very involved in a place that
is kind of a refuge for children. They’ll call us sometimes and say
‘We need school kits,’ and we’ll be there. For Christmas we collect
toys and bring them over. It is very funny because December in Buenos
Aires can be very hot, and one of our men will be wearing this heavy
Santa Claus outfit.”
It did seem a
mark of distinction that an international hotel chain would
participate in helping to alleviate problems in a specific locality.
Perhaps this corporate policy plays some role in the sense of pride we
witnessed among staff members, noticeably Cecilia, Samy, and Julian –
a trio of competent, talented and very young people who have so
swiftly risen to positions of leadership -- in being associated with
the Starwood brand..
“My original language is Italian. Then of course I learned
Spanish,” said Julian. “Since working here, I’ve learned to speak
English, a little French. I’ve met so many people who have shown me
new ways of looking at things, new ways of thinking. This hotel
changed my life.”
Sheraton Buenos Aires Hotel & Convention Center
San Martin 1225
(C1104AKC)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Phone: (54-11) 4318-9371
Park Tower
Avenida Leandro N. Alem 1193
(C1001AAG)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Phone: (54-11) 4318-9371
photographs by Harvey Frommer |
