Due to the tone of its proposal, the Blue Paris could seem like a luxury restaurant. However, Barroso indicates that the values of his dishes are “in an intermediate line”, in line with those of the rest of the Apunto Group’s proposals, which include Baxar Mercado, Paesano Rosso, Foodies, Masse Boulangerie and La Trattoriaamong many others distributed between La Plata and the Atlantic Coast.
The challenge of combining tradition and novelty in Paris Confectionery
When the brothers Carlos and Marcelo Leuzzi, creators of Grupo Apunto, came with the idea of reopening Paris – closed in 2020, after 51 years of history -, Leandro knew that he was facing one of the most difficult challenges of his career. Although he had already participated in the materialization of almost 20 projects in the more than 13 years that he has been in the group, he had never before had to combine “the classic and the modern.”
—The double challenge of this place was to give it an innovative imprint on a traditional corner that is already a cultural heritage of La Plata. It was necessary to maintain a bit of tradition, so that the usual people did not feel left out, adding everything modern, to make a new experience for the younger people.
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Chef Leandro Barroso has been at Grupo Apunto for 13 years and has already worked on almost 20 projects.
The creative process took more than a year. In a dynamic that is already well-oiled after so many inaugurations, Leandro began “cranking” alone and, once the project gained clarity, he moved on to teamwork with the chefs, designers and marketing specialists. With them he thought about the plates, the crockery, the cutlery, the menu, the uniforms and the endless details that made up the experience he sought to create.
Starting from scratch with such a big project, like an author facing a blank page, can be overwhelming, but he says he experiences it with a mixture of adrenaline and a certain dose of stress that he likes. After the inauguration, the response from the public arrives and a new stage of adjustments to the dishes begins, for which they usually rely on the team’s chefs. This is a complex moment in which, he says, it is necessary to have clear ideas.
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In addition to the different dishes, at Blue Paris you can enjoy the best cocktails, which include coffee-based drinks.
—If you pay close attention to everything they say and ten people come and tell you ten different things, you get dizzy. Then you have to bet on the decision you already made and defend it to the death. Later, time will tell if you were right, because it is not from one day to the next: you have to do an analysis of several months and a year to see where everything is going. In this case we did not know how people were going to take it because this concept did not exist in La Plata. People come and tell you: ‘oh, it’s nice to return to Paris’ and others say: ‘oh, they changed it: this one doesn’t look like Paris, but the bathrooms are better’ —exemplifies the chef, laughing.
The vocation of cooking so that others can enjoy
Before discovering that he wanted to be a chef, Leandro Barroso wanted to be a psychologist. Three months after starting to study at UNLP, he realized that it was not for him. The following year he signed up to become a professional chef and there he found his calling. The experiences that influenced that decision were two and can be found in his childhood. The first has his grandfather as the protagonist, grilling on the weekends, to entertain the whole family. In the second is the grandmother of a neighboring family, in the neighborhood of her childhood, Villa Elisa. The woman took care of him daily and was a cook at the San Martín Hospital. She often watched her patiently prepare, from very early on, cannelloni, pasta and other abundant dishes that everyone then enjoyed. Leandro still remembers those flavors, however, from both influences he stands out that he was captivated by something more.
—It had to do with the gift of service, of entertaining, of cooking so that others could enjoy. I started to like cooking seeing how others enjoyed what they prepared.
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Leandro Barroso decided to study gastronomy when he saw how the people around him enjoyed food.
While studying at the Southern Gastronomic Institute, he made his first weapons in food houses and restaurants, among them, The Trattoria, where he met the Leuzzi brothers. After graduating as a chef, he traveled to Bariloche in 2003 to work at the prestigious Hotel Llao Llaowhere he cooked with the chef Dario Gualtieriwhom he considers “the one” in Argentina, for the creativity of his dishes.
In 2007 he returned to La Plata and began traveling daily to Federal capital to work in the luxury hotel Sofiteltogether with the renowned French chef Thierry Pszonka, in Recoleta. But after a few months the daily commute began to tire him out. While he was considering the idea of returning to Bariloche, the opportunity to work at the restaurant arose. Pity me, which at that time was about to open, on the corner of 9th and 54th. He started as a sous chef and after five months he was in charge. That, he assures, was his great experience as head chef.
—First it was a great disappointment, because I came from cooking pheasant, duck, hare and I went on to make Maryland supreme. Until I understood that it is an obligatory step in the kitchen to go through the traditional, the basics. And I also learned to solve things in a hard way, which I didn’t have in Bariloche. At Me Piace we cooked for 500 people on Saturday nights. Today it is something unthinkable.
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Blue Paris offers the people of La Plata a different experience for dinner, but also for special occasions at noon.
In 2010 he began working with Grupo Apunto, in the design of the first Masse boulangeriediagonally 74 and 47. Later, for the creation of Paessano RossoI travel to Italy, with the aim of learning everything about Neapolitan pizza. On that trip he also explored the flavors of Spain. Since then she did not stop and became the mind behind the restaurants that revolutionized the way of eating in La Plata.
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In the last 20 years, La Plata gastronomy has undergone a strong transformation.
Today he says that he could have tried his luck abroad and that, at one point, he even seriously considered the idea but preferred to stay in La Plata. It comforts him to know that it is part of the change in the way people eat in the city, a goal that he already aspired to while studying his degree, at a time when there were many restaurants with almost identical menus.
—Unintentionally, or wanting a little, I am a grain of sand in this change that has taken place in the last 10 years, in which we all contribute, not only me but also the company and many other gastronomics throughout the city, from the smallest to the largest. There is still much more to grow and new generations will come, who will continue to revolutionize the gastronomy of La Plata.
