[PUEBLO GARZÓN, URUGUAY] — About 14 miles or so miles inland from the surf of Jose Ignacio Uruguay — the world’s best beach town IMO — is a sleepy little town called Garzón.  There, in the middle of rolling green hills of gaucho country, Francis Mallmann (my favorite restaurateur in the world) has created a true destination place, El Garzón. In fact, he bought up a whole town around it.

I’ve been to Garzón to eat or stay over four different trips to Uruguay. Maybe even another one, too. This is a consolidated post from past visits so everything is one place. Here we go.

Where My Love of Francis Began — Los Negros in Jose Ignacio

I first discovered Francis’s magic way back in 2005 (before he was worldwide famous) when I ate at his destination restaurant Los Negros, right on the beach in Jose Ignacio. Designed along with famed architect Martin Gomez, I was immediately hit over the head with his incomparable design style, intense focus on every detail and his complete dedication to cooking with fire.

Los Negros, like a lot of Uruguayan cooking, was built around a horno, a large clay oven, where nearly everything was cooked around the high temperature wood-fired clay oven. And everything gets cooked in there, from charred vegetables, to prized Uruguayan grass-fed beef, to desserts. It is my favorite style of cooking. (So far, sounds like everything is “my favorite _____” in this post. 🤣

Los Negros was perched on the edge of a cliff, with big weathered windows overlooking the crashing surf of the peninsula. It was heaven. Not fancy, just fancy casual. The wind rattled the wobbly windows, the sound of the waves wafting through the room, you felt like you were one with the surf. It was one of two famous destination restaurants that put Jose Ignacio on the map.

Every single thing was perfect. I don’t like fancy restaurants anymore, this place changed me for that. That’s when I discovered Rustic Elegance in restaurant food, the best ingredients, prepare simply and cooked to perfection. Not fancy. And Francis is the master of that. (Unfortunately, after a 30 year run, Francis closed Los Negros later that year and it’s now some lucky person’s house.)

After I came back to my hotel raving about my lunch, the owner of my hotel told me about Francis’s other restaurant, El Garzón, a 40 minute drive inland. “People drive from all over to take long summer lunches. It has become quite famous; movies stars, celebrities, you name it. You will love it. It’s very special.”

And off I went the next day.

“People drive from all over to take long summer lunches. It has become quite famous; movies stars, celebrities, you name it. You will love it. It’s very special.”

Founded in the late 1800s, the hamlet of Garzón was pretty much a ghost town Francis had bought up many of the boarded up buildings and was renovating them one-by-one to create a culinary and artistic heaven. A restaurant, a shop, artist studios. Outside of peak summer days, it’s still a pretty sleepy, three-chicken town.

Built in an old general store, he also added five incredibly tricked-out rooms in the old storerooms in the back, in case you wanted to not face the drive back to the coast after a long boozy lunch. Precious gems carved out of a courtyard built around a quiet pool. It’s not really a hotel, per se, more like staying in someone’s house. (Albeit, a really nice house.)

I loved my long lunch so much that I came back the next year, that time to stay overnight on my way back from Jose Ignacio to the airport in Montevideo.

And then I came back again a couple of years later for summer lunch. And yet another time a couple of years after that, to stay for a couple of days, this time dragging along some friends. I LOVE it here. Just wait and see…

Getting To Garzón is Half the Fun

Getting to Garzón is half the fun, scooting through miles of country roads through the rolling estancias, barely any other cars on the road, endless relaxed cows and clumps of trees on the hills. Uruguay has some of the most beautiful farm and ranch land I’ve ever seen. Perfectly maintained, no rusty cars or old tires piled up along cluttered fence lines, just a green patchwork of grazing land.

The ranch land is like a flat Tuscany. Millions of trees were planted by a government program years ago to restore the land… and as a bonus, they enhance the landscape… like an art director put them there.

Pueblo Garzón — A Revived Gaucho Town That Looks Like a Movie Set

My very first overnight, I was up early taking pictures out front, standing in the middle of the road and shooting down the dusty main street. I noticed an elegant guy with gorgeous flowing grey hair and spectacular glasses in a pristine white fluffy bathrobe on the front porch, having coffee and reading the newspaper in the warm morning sun. Right out along the cowboy-esque covered wood sidewalk along the road.

I thought “Now that’s the way you do it.”

To my surprise, the man got up and walked over to the middle of the road in his robe and posh slippers and introduced himself. “Hellloooo, I’m Francis. How is your stay?”

I was dumbstruck. My legend, right in front of me, here in the middle of Uruguay. In a robe.

“I hope you like it, I’m really trying to build something special here. Do you want to to go for a ride up to the mountain ridge? You can take one of our horses over there (points 👉), we can pack you a nice picnic to have up in the hills. It’s all included.”

It killed me, unfortunately I had to decline, I was about to check out and leave for my flight out of Montevideo. Stupid me. That’s when I vowed to come back.

People have been making the trek to this cool hamlet for over a couple of decades now. Some have moved here, filling out the mostly rural-working residents. A rockstar here. An English artist and his wife there. Artists have opened a few studios. It’s such a laid back place.

And Francis still has a house here, too, when he’s not traveling the world each week checking in on his other restaurants, cooking at big events or relaxing at his remote cabin in Patagonia.

Following his Instagram page, he regularly makes trips back, sometimes cooking on a hilltop for a magazine photo shoot, or setting up a big fire-cooking festival in the middle of the street — digging up big trenches in the dirt road to slow cook vegetables underground overnight, the Patagonian way.

(Screenshots from Francis’s Instagram page.)

There are less than a couple hundred people that live around and outside of town. Most of them ranchers and gaucho hands that help them.

The last time I was there, they held their annual gaucho festival for Carnival in the main streets of Garzón, with the locals dressed in their finest, proudly riding their finest steeds, everyone looking like they were from Central Casting. Then parading out for a Uruguayan-style rodeo on a pasture outside of town. Pinch me. You can read about it on a separate post I made here.

Restaurante Garzón — Worth Driving 40 Minutes to the Middle of Nowhere

Francis’s fame is built around cooking with fire. He’s the master. (Here’s a great story about Francis and his first big cook book, Seven Fires) and he totally blew up after appearing in the first episode of the ground-breaking Chef’s Table on Netflix, right after I became a fan. (You gotta watch it.)

He has since published more cookbooks and has really blown up, traveling the world with his giant wood fires cooking in the streets of New York, Paris, Aspen and later opening restaurants in Miami, Provence and so many other places.

His design style is about as perfect as it gets to me, using natural materials, subtle colors… just like his amazing food.

From the dining room you can watch all the action take place in the glassed-off kitchen, where they cook all the special meats in a specially-designed grill that cooks both sides at once, between two separate fires, called  infiernillo (little hell). Or a searing plancha for the perfect char. [Note: I purposefully take pics when other people are not around.]

Details. Details. Details. It’s all in the details. And Garzón is dripping with it. Imagine the perfect movie set or photo shoot where every single corner, nook and cranny exudes great thought and attention. Nothing is missed.

Zoom in on any square meter and you have your shot. Piles of bright lemons stacked in vintage white ceramic bowls, all over the place, inside and out. The heaviest sterling silver forks and knives you’ve ever held. Salt and pepper pots, crimped by hand by a local ceramicist with a studio down the street. Books and books, stacked in every corner, showing signs of being curated by a man who loves poetry.

But staying for the night, everything looks and feels different. The crowds go away. The lights come down, the music turns up. The drinks come out.

Tray after smoldering tray of food arrive straight from the grill, or seared on a plancha. Fresh scallops and endive, seared to perfection, arriving smoking at the table. A rock salt-encrusted sea bass or branzino, the thick salt shell cracked at the table. Topped off with a nice inky-black Tannat from the nearby hills.

Lunches can be crowded, especially on the weekends during High Season in Punta and Jose Ignacio –which is why there are so many tables outside, out front and around the pool. But at night, you practically have the place to yourself. Each time I stayed there were few other guests.

Instead of worrying about a long drive home after a boozy dinner along dark country roads, you can just park outside and curl up on a bench next to the perfectly-designed fire pits and sip on your Armagnac. Grinning at the moon.

You sit down next to the ingeniously-designed fire baskets and someone appears and says “Would you like me to light a fire for you?”

Allow me to geek out here a bit about these ingeniously-designed fire baskets Francis has all around his places. I’ve never seen anything like them.

What makes them special is they sit up off the ground, which brings the warmth high up to you upper body, not just cooking your toes. It only takes one or two logs stacked vertically, to catch fire instantly. Vents at the bottom help turbo the flames.

They are instantly recognizable as the scalloped green benches; when you see pics of them in Instagram you know you are in a Francis Place.

Stay, Don’t Leave

The hotel, the restaurant, they are one. There is no reception desk. There is no hotel staff. You just walk into the restaurant and the attentive staff stop setting tables, show you to your room, hand you your keys and go back to prepping for service.

Everything is included: meals, room, cocktails, wine and the ability to take horses up for a picnic in the surrounding hillsides. You don’t have to worry about signing for things or leaving your name. They know you. It’s like staying at a friend’s country estate, without the owner home. The pace is leisurely and brings down your blood pressure about 50 points.

The rooms aren’t cheap, but when you factor in that everything is included — breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner, booze and wine, picnics, horse rides, the pool… it’s almost a bargain.

You get to lounge around this gorgeous house like it’s your own, as the kitchen staff rustles up the meals for the next service. As a hotel guest, this is your lobby. Whatever you need, round the clock, they’ll bring it to you.

The Sexiest Pool and Courtyard at Hotel Garzón

The five rooms all open out onto a perfect courtyard. A stunning place surrounding the most gorgeous pool. Big plants and seating areas nestled under palm trees. A safari-style bar set in the shade in the back. His now iconic green scalloped benches, scattered about, ready to welcome groups during the very busy Busy Season.

The best beaches in South America are just an hour away, but you just want to hang out here.

This is what I mean by Every.Single.Detail. A simple chessboard, elevated to a work of art. And lemons. Lemons everywhere.

The Rooms at Hotel Garzón

The rooms open out onto the surrounding farmland, with sounds of horses, cows and roosters wafting in throughout the day. The rooms are pristine, waxed black floorboards reflecting the light, softened with checked fabrics and jeweled chandeliers and sheets from heaven. The seductive afternoon light and details of the bathrooms make you just want to hang out in there and take a nap on the floor.

The rooms open out onto the surrounding farm land, with sounds of horses, cows and roosters wafting in throughout the day. Yesterday’s sheets, now clean, airing out in the cool wind.

Bodega Garzón — Olive Oils and Fantastic Wines

When I was last in Garzón in 2014, the weather wasn’t great, stormy and grey. A waiter recommended an olive oil tasting at nearby Bodega Garzón. Started by an Argentine billionaire, first as an olive oil producer, he then brought in a new winemaker who has since really boosted to quality of producing high-quality Uruguayan wines, built on the stalwarts of Tannat and Albariño.

Like Francis, Bodega Garzón has really blown up. Now it has a well-deserved reputation around the world and is a centerpiece at Francis’s restaurants and the famed La Huella in Jose Ignacio. Here’s an article about their wines, voted “New World Winery of the Year”.

  — Last Visited December 2005, 2006, March 2011, March 2014 —

More Information About Francis Mallmann’s Garzón Heaven

Here’s another post I made about one of Francis’s amazing first restaurant, Patagonia Sur, in La Boca. I had the most remarkable time there…all by myself. You can read about why here.

Here’s my post on my favorite place on earth, the nearby bohemian jetset town of Jose Ignacio. And other here are my posts on other places I’ve loved in Uruguay.

Here’s a link to the Garzón website. Here’s a link to Francis’s groundbreaking episode on Netflix’s Chef’s Table, which really put him on the map. And a link to Conde Nast Traveler’s post on Garzón.

Here’s a great recent article on the town of in the NYTimes. And a bigger article about all the fantastic Uruguayan beach towns. Here’s what Travel & Leisure wrote about it in 2012. And TripAdvisor.  And Wall Street Journal, way back in 2009. And Financial Times. And a profile on Francis in Food & Wine.

Here’s a recent article in Conde Nast Traveler about how Jose Ignacio keeps getting better and better. Here’s a great article on Garzón in the Wall Street Journal article here. And another article in the Wall Street Journal on how Francis and the great guys at La Huella — my favorite restaurant in the world –have made a name for cooking with fire.

Hurry.