Fruits of Land And Sea

Uruguay’s beach scene is known as one of the best in South America. But the epicurean delights of its rich, ranch-filled interior and rolling wine country have, until now, been less explored. JOHN BOWE saddles up and tucks in.

- JOHN BOWE

BY THE TIME I’d breezed through automated border control at Montevideo’s Carrasco Airport, received an earnest bro handshake from the rental-car guy, crossed town in rush-hour traffic in under 30 minutes, and devoured a plate of barbecue at the Mercado del Puerto, I remembered why I’ve always loved coming to Uruguay. There’s not a mellower, humbler, more reliably agreeable country in the world— nor one with better meat.

It was early December 2019, and I was back in Uruguay for the first time in over a decade. I’d justified my carnivorous meal by framing it as a litmus test. Had the menus changed at this cluster of parillas (restaurants specialising in steak, sausage, and organ meats, grilled over firewood and charcoal) in a former produce market in Montevideo? Had the stalwart, working-class feel of the place become prissy and boutique? Of all my childhood memories of Uruguay, the parilla was a cornerstone.

Seated at the counter, watching the grill-tenders flash arm and sometimes neck tattoos as they offered tastes of grilled provolone, I got my answer. If the formerly grass-fed cows were now slightly fattened with grain, everything else— from the serviceable cappuccino to the dazzling dulce de leche pancake—was exactly as I remembered it.