European refinement and new-world gutsiness proved to be a winning combination. Mallmann seemed set for the long term. But after ten years, his handshake lease became one month's notice to vacate or fork over a huge amount of cash. Rather than meet what he felt were outrageous financial demands, he closed up shop and moved to a mansion in the raffishly seedy waterfront neighborhood of La Boca. They say the tango was born there, invented by the rowdy stevedores, knife-wielding sailors, and dime-a-dance girls of the dockside community.

Patagonia Sur, as the restaurant is called, was slow to catch on, in part because of the economic pall cast by the financial crisis and hyperinflation in Argentina in the late 1990s. Or maybe it was the reluctance of the well-off to go slumming in La Boca. By this time, however, Mallmann's stature had outgrown the need for him to have a hot Buenos Aires restaurant. He merely needed a presence.

Among others, President Carlos Menem found the place convenient to bring his dining partners for a supper well out of the public's (and, more important, his wife's) eye. Both Menem and current president Néstor Kirschner turned to the illustrious chef when an important visitor came to Argentina, flying him in from wherever he happened to be so that he could prepare a dinner for heads of state. At last year's economic summit in Mar de Plata, Mallmann calculated that his big old steak and crispy potato basket would fit nicely into a culinary canon as cultivatedly lowbrow as that of George W. Bush. Mallmann's adherence to the Argentine custom of dining late (normally no earlier than 10:30 p.m.) reportedly discomfited the early-to-bed president, but Mallmann swears that it wasn't a political gesture.

Through most of the years of financial crisis, Bodega Escorihuela's Francis Mallmann 1884—his joint venture in Mendoza with Nicolas Catena—remained a de rigueur stop for serious wine tourists, while Los Negros continued to hold its own in Uruguay. Mallmann was able to cast around for new opportunities, testing the waters with consulting ventures in the United States and Europe. But the South American economic picture had improved so much by 2005 that Mallmann, who liked splitting his time between the United States, Europe, and Latin America, could no longer afford to spend so much time away from his restaurants and catering businesses.

Last year, he opened a boutique hotel about ten miles inland from Los Negros, in the sleepy town of Garzón. Its five bedrooms look out on a grassy courtyard. His Smiles of a Summer Night banquettes, painted pale green with a black trim, lend an almost surreal René Magritte touch to the setting. The voice of Cecilia Bartoli or Norah Jones on the sound system, or even T. S. Eliot (Mallmann is the biggest poetry fan I've ever met), often competes with the lowing of cows and the cry of roosters on the other side of the fence. If you drive from Garzón to the sea, you can bet that any new car you encounter contains visitors coming or going from a meal and maybe a night at Mallmann's.