I grew up in Pinamar, a small town on the Argentine coast, in the 1980s. My father had bars and restaurants and I started working at one of them when I was 12, washing dishes, then a different position every summer until I was 18. But I was confident that my life was going to be far away from restaurants.
I then moved to Buenos Aires to study graphic design and art direction before heading to New York to study filmmaking. When I finished I went back to Pinamar with the idea of working for the summer, making some money, and going back to the US to work in film, but then realised that that would never happen because the Argentine economy was a disaster. Instead I got an offer from the owners of the Gran Bar Danzon in Buenos Aires to help set up a new venue, which ultimately led to me opening my own bar, Florería Atlántico, in the city. The rest is history. At the moment I’m a nomad. I left Argentina in 2014 and moved to Rio de Janeiro. Then I was in LA for two years.
Mixologist Renato Giovannoni at Don Julio steakhouse in Buenos Aires © Anita Pouchard Serra
Every time I go to Buenos Aires, I stay in the Retiro neighbourhood near Plaza General San Martín, the most beautiful park in the city. I used to go there when I was a little boy with my grandmother. My basement bar Florería Atlántico opened in 2013, about four blocks away. As well as a bar it houses a flower shop. It gives something nice to the neighbourhood and reminds me of when I was a child visiting Buenos Aires, when there were flower shops on every corner.
