chefs Alberto Llano and Hernan Stutzer
|

Top chefs to bring Argentinian flavor to Hilton Head Island Seafood Festival

Asado by the sea

Story By Leslie T. Snadowsky

Featured chefs Alberto Llano and Hernan Stutzer will blend the finest Southern seafood flavors with rustic outdoor cooking techniques at the Hilton Head Island Seafood Festival. Asado By The Sea, slated for Wednesday, Feb. 19, is an exclusive masterclass in Argentinian grilling that’s part culinary adventure and part performance art. Guests will watch their expertly crafted meal prepared over an open fire while gazing at endless ocean views and sitting under swaying palmettos at the Beach House Resort.

©SpotHopper

“We want to showcase the ways of the South,” as in South America, says Chef Hernan. “In Patagonia, Argentina, asado is a technique that is used very often. It’s an open-fire concept with proteins and vegetables cooking right above the fire. The structure we use is called a dome, and you can adjust the height of the different proteins, depending on the type of protein thickness. They’re basically getting smoked, but not in a way that you would see here in the South with enclosed smokers.”

Chef Hernan said, as the meats cook for many hours, they baste them with salmuera, a solution of water, salt and herbs so that everything stays moist. For the vegetables they use a technique called curanto, or pit cooking, where root vegetables, like sweet potatoes, are placed directly onto coals and embers. 

“That direct contact with the heat source allows for a beautiful caramelization of the root vegetable,” says Chef Hernan.

Chefs Alberto and Hernan pride themselves in using few but quality “honest” ingredients that are not mass-produced and filled with additives you can’t pronounce. 

“Fire, protein and salt,” says Chef Hernan. “That’s all you need. That way, you let the integrity of your ingredients shine. For Asado By The Sea, we’re going to prepare local veggies, a lot of local shrimp, fish and seafood caught fresh from the ocean, and we’ll source our beef from small production farms.”

Chefs Alberto and Hernan, from Colombia and Argentina respectively, met as teens while studying culinary arts at Le Cordon Bleu in Miami, Florida. They became fast friends and wanted to open a restaurant together. In April 2011 they opened Del Sur in Miami, and in August 2014 they relocated their families to St. Simons Island, Georgia, and opened Del Sur Artisan Eats (delsursaintsimons.com). The popular Argentinian-Italian steakhouse is known for its tasty menu, superb service, and sold-out wine-tasting event dinners. In February 2022 the epicureans launched the casual dining Del Sur Cafe in an Art Deco building in Brunswick, Georgia. 

“We wanted to bring a Miami vibe to the area,” says Chef Alberto. “And we created a very wholesome and delicious Hispanic-oriented menu. We serve a number of different food bowls for lunch, with equal parts protein, carbohydrates and vegetables, and many different Argentinian-style empanadas.”

Catering services and a mobile baby-blue food truck named Luigi make up the other two facets of the foodies’ business empire.

Chefs Hernan Stutzer and Alberto Llano
Chefs Hernan Stutzer and Alberto Llano believe in cooking with “honest” ingredients that are not mass-produced and filled with additives you can’t pronounce.

“We’ve had Luigi for over a year now, and it’s a very unique piece of art,” says Chef Alberto. “It’s a replica of a Citroën H-Type truck, and it was custom made for us in Buenos Aires. From it we serve a similar menu to the menu we have in the Cafe, including Latin-oriented Cuban sandwiches and different bowls with seafood or steak. And of course the empanadas are a very big part of it.”

The two chefs bonded over their love for the crescent-shaped, savory pastries made of dough and filled with a variety of ingredients. That mutual culinary crush has fed into their newest venture – selling empanadas wholesale to hotels and restaurants all over the country to be served at weddings and conventions as passed hors d’oeuvres.

“We specialize in Argentinian empanadas, and they are very versatile,” says Chef Alberto. “We can use any kind of filling, but I think the trick is in the dough that we use to wrap or to encase them. We have a generations-old homemade recipe that comes from Hernan’s family. It has the perfect amount of fat, flour and water, and it makes it very crispy. Our bestseller is unique. It’s not a typical empanada. It’s a braised lamb empanada, and it’s pretty much a package of love.

“We make Argentinian beef empanadas with olives and hard-boiled eggs,” adds Chef Alberto. “We make ham and cheese breakfast empanadas, spinach empanadas, butternut squash empanadas, fresh local shrimp empanadas, salmon empanadas and filet mignon empanadas. We are very creative when it comes to our empanadas.”

Chef Alberto says a sprig of rosemary tucked inside goes a long way to add extra perfume and flavor.

replica Citroën food truck
Luigi, a picturesque replica Citroën food truck that’s part of the Del Sur culinary brand, serves Latin American street food including Cuban sandwiches, empanadas and seafood and steak bowls.

As for the type of asado grilling the chefs will perform at the Hilton Head Island Seafood Festival from Feb. 17-23, Chef Hernan says less is more. “You want that contact between protein or vegetable with the fire to stay as untouched as possible because great things happen when you allow that to happen,” he said. “In the case of a steak, it’s going to stick. When you’re doing it the right way, and slowly, that creates caramelization which allows for the fat to render and become part of the steak that you’re cooking. If you start flip-flopping your steak, you’re allowing all the juices to exit the protein, and then it becomes dry. You’ll be missing a lot of the good juices that came with it. With veggies it’s the same thing. There’s nothing like a vegetable that you cook on a nice hot plancha. Putting vegetables on it creates a beautiful Maillard crust (a chemical reaction that occurs when amino acids and sugars are heated).”

As chefs Alberto and Hernan get ready to produce the signature gastronomic event at the festival, they’re looking forward to returning to the Island to stay at the Omni Hilton Head Oceanfront Resort and hang with festival founder Andrew Carmines, president of Hudson’s Seafood House on the Docks.

But what are the chefs’ favorite meals?

“My grandmother’s homemade pasta,” says Chef Hernan. “Fifty percent of the Argentinian population is of Italian descent, and growing up, we either had Sunday pasta or Sunday asado. My grandmother made outstanding fluffy gnocchi Bolognese and long fettuccini pasta that she’d make the very traditional Italian way.”

“I have an addiction to rice,” says Chef Alberto. “That will be my last meal. Rice is a huge thing in Colombia where I’m from. Everybody that knows me knows that rice is my weakness.”

Similar Posts