Mallmann rolled the dice and took the money. His new restaurant—no sign, no name—shared a building with the fly-fishing shop of Jorge Donovan, the greatest angler of his generation. With its evolving "Nuevo Andean" gastronomy, Mallmann's no-name restaurant surpassed his expectations. He was soon off the hook with his backer. Within a few years, he was able to relocate and open his dream restaurant, Patagonia. He was now the brightest star on the South American cooking scene. As a chef, he had found his own voice with his mud ovens that reached a thousand degrees and his ranks of infernillos. "Fire had become the most important thing," he said. "I realized that at extremely high temperatures, if you have a piece of meat that is not too big, you can cook incredible things in a very short time. The timing is quite pinpoint."

A corollary to his fast, high-heat method was a nearly complete abandonment of the long, slow-cooked sauces of haute cuisine as canonized by Careme and Escoffier. In fact, in the ten years I have known Francis, I don't believe I have ever seen a stockpot in his kitchen—although he has told me that he uses stocks for soups. In place of sauces, he often dresses his food with olive oil and herb mixtures, with vinegar or lemon juice added for brightness. With beef, he serves a version of a classic Patagonian chimichurri with homegrown herbs in place of the dried herbs that gauchos carry out on the pampas. For pork, he douses the caramelized medallions with his version of the Sicilian salmoriglio—a mixture of lemon juice, olive oil, lemon peel, oregano, and honey. And, then, of course, there's the herbal lemon and garlic dressing that he used on the salmon at the De Rothschild picnic. (I have used the same recipe on East Coast striped bass and New Orleans redfish.)

One of his earliest and greatest high-heat hits was Fish in an Iron Box, for which he employs a deep-sided rectangular iron pan, one much favored by Brazilian cowpunchers. The box and lid are placed in a superhot oven, and when the box is well heated, Mallmann tosses in thick wedges of squash, potato, or whatever vegetable looks good that day. He then puts the heated lid on the box and returns it to the oven. After just a few minutes, the vegetables achieve a light char on the outside and a subtle softness within. He lays a fish fillet on top of the vegetables, seasons it, and adds a splash of olive oil and fresh-cut basil. The box is then carried to the table, with the lid on, and in the time it takes to get from the kitchen to the customer, the fish is cooked.

Although fast and simple cooking was at the heart of Mallmann's evolving style, it was about more than just high heat. It was also the waiters, waitresses, and often kitchen crew as young and beautiful as models. It was the handcrafted steak knives with wide shafts and handles made of huayacan (a hardwood that grows on the slopes of Mount Tupungato, in Mendoza) and, alongside such gaucho rusticity, the place mats and napkins from the artisanal looms of Le Jacquard Français in Paris—starched white damask with an interwoven Chinese pattern.