Francis Mallmann, the world-famous Argentinian chef known for live-fire cooking, is opening a restaurant in New York this spring. It’s in the forthcoming Faena New York — an offshoot of the Miami Beach luxury hotel debuting near the High Line in Manhattan at 500 West 18th Street, near 11th Avenue, in a building designed by the esteemed Bjarke Ingels Group.
This is not the first collaboration between Mallmann and Faena. The hotel has Argentinian roots: Alan Faena first founded the hotel group in Buenos Aires in 2000, before adding on Miami a decade later. In Miami, they run Los Fuegos By Francis Mallmann inside the hotel. It’s a restaurant cloaked in deep reds and leopard print, an interior scheme said to be “partially” influenced by Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann.
Mallmann’s forthcoming New York project is still without a name but it will be distinct from Los Fuegos while continuing with cooking over an open flame and “searing in giant cast-iron skillets,” according to the New York Times.
If his Miami restaurant is any indication, prices will be opulent (mains are priced between $48 at the low end to $78 on a current website menu). However, not all local reviewers were impressed by his accreditations alone. Infatuation Miami wrote: “Los Fuegos just isn’t that fun. It’s stuffy and feels like if you get up and touch anything, you’ll be asked to leave,” and advised that there were better ways to spend your money in the area.
Mallmann was born in Buenos Aires before relocating with his family to Patagonia in his teenage years. Despite operating restaurants that span continents (including the Mallmann at Chateau La Coste, another hotel, in Provence, France), that remains his base. He got his start cooking French food and winning accolades, before returning to his roots with live-fire cooking, catapulting him to become South America’s most prominent chef.
Luxury hospitality is particularly in Mallmann’s blood. In a 2022 profile with Outside Magazine, he discussed the way, following his appearance in Chef’s Table, “ he became a hotelier of sorts” with interest from paying guests to his private island retreat — where he’s reportedly charged upwards of $60,000 for a five-night stay — pouring in following his episode’s premiere.
At the Faena Miami, rooms at the lowest can still start at $1,000 or more per night. When it opens in New York, just blocks from a Google campus, it will join other hotels pushing prices past their tipping point, like the new Manner Hotel in Soho and the Aman Hotel in Midtown.
