Isolina de la Vega grew up eating barbecue every Sunday in her native Argentina, but that experience didn’t prepare her for her first smoked pork ribs slathered in thick, sweet and tangy Kansas City barbecue sauce.
“When we received the food, I was like, ‘What is that? That’s not barbecue,’” says de la Vega, who co-owns Los Hornos Argentinian Flavors with her husband, Dario Jerrez Leavy. “But we changed our minds. When we decided to move here, we learned we had two different barbecues.”
Eager to share their love of Argentinian barbecue with World Cup fans, the couple imported an Espiritu Parrillero grill and hefty bags of lump charcoal to cook authentic asado during watch parties on the restaurant’s outdoor patio.
Asado involves direct grilling of large cuts of grass-fed beef, sausages and offal seasoned simply with sea salt, served naked or with chimichurri on the side. The same word is used to refer to a social gathering with family and friends, “a process” of leisurely sampling meats throughout the day as each comes off the open flame.
“The asado is the event, the food, the style of cooking,” says Todd Johns, an award-winning American Royal Grand Champion pitmaster and creator of Plowboys Barbecue rubs and sauces. “They use that word kind of interchangeably.”
In 2024, Johns spent three weeks touring Buenos Aires, Iguazu, Mendoza and El Calafate. During a stop at a cattle estate for an afternoon of horseback riding, he veered off from the group to hang out with Argentinian pitmasters.
While Johns fell hard for provoleta and morcilla, he left pining for a succulent morsel of beef.
“I appreciate what they’re doing, and it’s good in its own right, but nothing really had that American South barbecue tenderness in its doneness,” he says. “It all has a chew to it, which, to my American palate, tasted like steak.”
While waiting for the new grill to pass inspection, I try the sampler platter cooked on the indoor grill. It features costilla, a thin strip of beef short ribs cut across the bone, and tapa de asada, thick-cut brisket with the fat cap cooked to medium and seasoned with a signature red-tinted chimichurri.
Less familiar meats include a coarsely ground, less spicy version of pork chorizo; molleja, a sweetbread with a calamari-like chew served with a squeeze of lemon; and morcilla, a plump and rich-tasting blood sausage with the texture of patê.
“I like my barbecue more, but it’s because I grew up eating this barbecue, but I like Kansas City barbecue, too,” de la Vega says. “And when I receive friends and family from Argentina, of course, that’s the first place that we go—to one of our favorite Kansas City barbecue restaurants.”
