There is no other destination in the world that captivates Marcelo Pino (41) more than his native Pichilemu. Entering La Parrilla de Pino, the restaurant that the prominent sommelier (voted Chile’s best in 2011 and 2014) opened earlier this year just a few metres from his home, one can understand why. Adorned with cypress trees, the site of La Parrilla de – half a hectare in the Buenos Aires sector, a ten-minute drive from the centre of Pichilemu – overlooks the green of the fields, the thickness of the forests and the immensity of the sea.
“What you can see in the background, from here, is Punta de Lobos,” says Pino, sitting at a table on the interior terrace, where dishes parade by, while the clients enjoy the spectacular view.
It all started with the idea of making a barbecue for friends, he says. During the confinements, Pino (Casa Silva’s ambassador for 13 years), who is usually surrounded by people and always has a project in mind, imagined a meeting point. Then he saw the possibility of expanding it, and so his charcuterie was born, distributed in reduced but functional spaces. And he continued with the restaurant. “Many people told me that it was a little out of the way, but when the food is good and the service is good, people will come anyway. The Pichilemino centre is collapsed. Here the cars are kept indoors.
Pino is interested in creating something simple but well-made. “I eat a lot in restaurants, I’m a cook. In Chile there is a lack of service. We sell experience from the moment people enter. Those who work here have to know what’s in the cellar and in the kitchen. Everything on the menu has to be there. We don’t want to disappoint the customer, that they ask for a dish and we don’t have any left”.
Some friends also told him that how could he set up a steak restaurant in a seaside resort. For him it was just what Pichilemu needed. “Everywhere there is fish and seafood. People who come to the beach for a week are going to want meat at some point. I love to eat sea urchins, but I also like the grill. And Chileans are carnivores. And here there was no grill”.
By way of a “welcome”, the place – built with local puno and open from Thursday to Sunday – offers a warm, sliced tortilla de rescoldo and some small bowls with butter, chimichurri and atomatada sauce. Before moving on to the main course, a good option is the pil-pil shrimp(grilled). As a star dish, the sirloin steak with Provençal potatoes. And for those who don’t eat meat, the crab sorrentinos. “There is also fish and we work with grilled vegetables. We have a small vegetable garden”, says Pino, who recommends wines for each of the preparations.
For dessert, the caramelised pineapple with banana-maqui ice cream and ground walnut base is exquisite. As an alternative, pear in red wine (in keeping with the tenor of the restaurant) with Madagascar vanilla ice cream, in the cold season, or grilled peaches with the same ice cream in summer.
People have come to La Parrilla de Pino (named after the owner’s surname, obviously, but also after the wood) mainly by word of mouth.
“Pichilemu is expanding into the countryside and upwards. Buying land is very expensive. Now this is the restaurant here. Eventually, we are going to be in the centre. Everything goes through here,” says Pino.
Waves, wine and everything else.
Relaxed, playful, persevering. Pino (the eldest of seven siblings) has made a path that would make anyone proud. He grew up in a modest home, with a mother who made empanadas and sopaipillas, and the intermittent presence of a father who felled trees. He learned to cook as a child. And to surf, at the age of 12. His dream was to travel the world on a board. Something he would later fulfil, in part, thanks to wine.
He sold sweets on the beaches and worked as a pizza delivery boy and taxi driver. And so he saved to pay for his studies. He studied gastronomy at the Diego Portales Institute in Santiago. He came to wine in 2006, when he did his internship at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. “There, there was the Wine 365 restaurant. The sommelier Magda Saleh taught us about wine,” he recalls.
Pino then joined the Sommelier School, where he later taught Wine and Water Service (he is the author of the Guía de Aguas Chile). In 2012, with contributions from Wine Of Chile and the Municipality of Pichilemu, he did an internship at the TerraVina hotel in Southampton, England, with Gerard Basset, considered the best sommelier in the world, who passed away in 2019.
Pino is currently preparing to become a master sommelier for The Court of Master Sommeliers, a London-based organisation that sets standards of excellence for beverages worldwide. If all goes well, next year he would be the second South American to achieve it, after another Chilean, Hector Vergara. “It’s like the star,” he says. I have also been a member of the jury for events such as Catad’Or Santiago and Japan Wine Challenge. He is also host of the programme Vino de visita on ADN Radio. And in his spare time, he continues to surf. “It’s my great passion, although I no longer do it as a sport, just whenever I can”.
Married for 22 years to Pía Silva, a lawyer from Rancagua, now dedicated to the logistics and operation of La Parrilla, he has three children: Matías (19), Ignacio (7) and Antonia (5). “My wife is structured and disciplined, I’m a bit more relaxed. Work-wise, we do very well.
The same goes for his team at the restaurant: nine people, including Pia and himself. He says they are “passionate, committed and professional people. That’s the basis for them to come in here. We are always improving ourselves. I go away for 15 days and it works like clockwork. At the beginning they needed me more.
Chef Lucia Quilaqueo and her partner, Patricio Vergara, the sous.chef, take much of the credit. “They are super dedicated. In a restaurant, to pull off a service like this, you need six or seven people in the kitchen and there are two of them, plus an assistant”.
Until Pino recruited Lucia and Patricio, both of whom work at Hacienda de Machalí in Rancagua, which is connected to Santiago’s La Cabrera. This, in turn, is still a franchise of the original La Cabrera in Palermo, Buenos Aires.
Lucía says that there is just a few women that are dedicated to the grill. “I don’t know why… It’s a hard job, that’s for sure: three hours a day in front of the fire. With Patricio, who taught her how to “grill”, they said they would never work together, because he didn’t want to mix personal and professional matters and because the work in the kitchen is intense. However, they have done it three times and it has worked. “There is complicity,” she sums up.
About the meat (100 percent Angus, free-range, from Valdivia), the cook says that “the grill gives it a more noble touch, unlike the griddle or the frying pan. It adds notes such as smoke, which here comes from vine wood”.
For her, working here is a challenge. “You have to study a bit more, understand how each food behaves. We work with a lot of local and fresh products. The menu is limited and simple, but we have to highlight the plates and enhance the presentation”.
A sample of the Pichilemino touch are the crabs from Productos del Mar Fullu, which are used to make the sorrentinos and which are extracted by Evarito Vásquez, father of a friend of Pino. Or the Buena Mano artisanal ice creams, whose producers work with innovative flavours. And there is Cahuil salt, of course.
Having the kitchen on display is another challenge. “We are on display all day long: people see a child running here or there, passing a plate, ringing the bell, handing it over. In a closed kitchen, they don’t notice. Here, they stop to watch. On the other hand, it brings them closer to the customers,” says Lucía.
Tomás Muñoz, from Santa Cruz, who studied gastronomy at Duoc, is a sommelier and head waiter. He seats the customers and advises them on the drinks to accompany each dish. With The Rolling Stones playlist playing in the background, he dreams of following in the boss’s footsteps.
Pino hopes to take a course to professionalise the service in the commune. At the same time, as he wants to settle permanently in Pichilemu (he currently lives half in Santiago), he has plans to set up a lodge with 15 cabins for couples, with wine as the focus, and to convert his house into a boutique hotel in five years’ time.
At that point, he and his family would have to move elsewhere, and he would take over the business full time. He has already entrusted the project to architects Marcela Silva, his sister-in-law, and Rodrigo Carrión, with whom he previously worked on a wine shop bearing his name, in the former Hotel de Chile España, which he left in 2019.
But that is a project for the future. The present is in this very place. The day we arrive, Marcelo Pino and Pia Silva celebrate the christening of their daughter, together with family and friends, on the outdoor terrace. The one “of the trunks”. The festive air is mixed with the aromas of the barbecue, while the Chilean flag flutters in the background, almost as a reminder of the Fiestas Patrias. Meanwhile, in the interior spaces, the customers do their own thing: eat, drink. Enjoy.
