Teresa Barbera is the true embodiment of Mendoza’s Italian heritage. Her parents came to Argentina when she was a young child and her mother started cooking for the local Italian immigrants who were missing food from home. Her pasta making and hospitality became well known in the city and she started a casual restaurant due to popular demand.
Teresa – who started making pasta as a toddler - carried on the family tradition from her mother and opened a couple other restaurants in the city as well as keeping the original restaurant, La Marchigiana.
Francesco is the more upscale version with delicious pasta, meat and fish dishes. The highlight of visiting this restaurant is meeting Teresa herself who, even at the age of retirement, continues to get her hands dirty and is always in the kitchen kneading the pasta as her mother taught her.
Fun fact: Brad Pitt and other cast members from Seven Years in Tibet enjoyed Teresa’s cuisine while filming in Mendoza in 1997.