Asado — Paraguayan Fire Kitchen

"Every dish has a village behind it."

Asado · Paraguayan Fire Kitchen

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The Fire

An older man and younger chef standing side by side at an open fire grill on a sun-baked estancia, smoke rising between them

Estancia Ybytymí, 1994

"He never measured anything. He said the fire would tell you when it was ready."

Before there was a restaurant,
there was a fire.

Chef Rodrigo Ayala grew up on a cattle estancia outside Villarrica where his father, Don Ernesto, managed the fire from before dawn. Not a gas burner — a pit of quebracho charcoal that took three hours to reach the right bed of coals. The lesson wasn't about temperature. It was about patience, presence, and reading something alive.

Every cut at Asado is still cooked over quebracho imported directly from Paraguay. The same wood. The same slow heat. The same discipline of waiting until the fire decides it's time — not the clock.

"The grill is not equipment. It is the oldest member of the kitchen."— Rodrigo Ayala, Head Chef & Co-founder

The Table

Receta de Mamá Rosalba · 1962

Sopa Paraguaya

"No es sopa. Es la tierra en un molde."
(It is not soup. It is the earth in a mold.)

1 kg fresh corn masa, stone-ground

400 g queso Paraguay — never substitute

3 large white onions, caramelized slow

4 eggs from the yard

250 ml whole milk, fresh

Lard from the pig we raised

Bake in clay at low heat until the crust sings.
You will know when it's ready because the house will smell like Sunday.

— Transcribed from the original notebook of Rosalba Ayala, Villarrica

A golden-crusted sopa paraguaya in a clay baking dish, fresh from the oven, sitting on a worn wooden surface

Three generations of the same Sunday afternoon.

Sopa Paraguaya is not soup — despite what the name suggests. It is a dense, golden cornbread baked in clay, and it appears at every significant meal in Paraguay: baptisms, harvests, the return of someone long away. The recipe on the left has not changed since Rodrigo's grandmother Rosalba wrote it in a school notebook in 1962.

His mother carried that notebook to Asunción. Rodrigo carried a photograph of it to culinary school in Buenos Aires, where his instructor told him it was "too simple." He served it at graduation anyway. The instructor asked for the recipe.

1962

Rosalba Ayala

Villarrica, Paraguay

First recorded in a school notebook. Corn from the family field.

1989

Carmen Ayala

Asunción, Paraguay

Adapted for a wood-fired oven after the clay kiln was lost in a flood.

2019

Rodrigo Ayala

New York City

Served at Asado, unchanged. Queso Paraguay imported weekly.

The Grill

Every dish earns its place
through a story, not a description.

The menu changes when the estancia changes — when the season shifts, when a new harvest comes in, when the fire teaches us something new. What follows is what we're cooking right now.

Beef Short Ribs

Costillas al Asador

$58

Hung vertically on iron crosses beside the fire — the way they've been cooked on the Chaco plain for 400 years. Six hours minimum. The fat renders into the coals and the smoke comes back as flavor.

Wagyu Tenderloin

Lomo Fino

$72

The one cut Rodrigo's father refused to rush. Seared over the hottest part of the quebracho bed, rested on warm clay, finished with nothing but the smoke already inside it.

Corn & Cheese Casserole

Chipa Guazú

$18

Baked in the clay oven Rodrigo's uncle built in 1998. The crust forms a shell. Inside: soft, trembling, impossible to describe to someone who hasn't been to a Paraguayan birthday.

Starch & Cheese Flatbread

Mbeju

$14

Grandmother food. Made only with cassava starch, queso Paraguay, and fat. Eaten for breakfast on the estancia for generations before it became "artisanal."

The full menu is presented at the table — it changes with the season and the fire.

Voices

What people say when they
come back for the third time.

I have eaten my way through Asunción, São Paulo, and Buenos Aires researching South American fire cooking. Asado in New York is doing something none of those places do: it is telling you why.

Meredith Okafor

Food Writer

Saveur Magazine

La sopa paraguaya me hizo llorar. No exagero. No la había probado así desde que mi abuela murió en 2011. Es honesta. No tiene pretensiones. Es exactamente lo que tiene que ser.

Diego Villalba

Paraguayan expat

Brooklyn, NY · Originally from Encarnación

We came for our anniversary thinking it would be "dinner." It became the best three hours of conversation we have had in years. Something about the way the food is served — slowly, with intention — changes how you talk to each other.

Priya & Nathaniel Reyes

Guests

Upper West Side, NYC

The costillas al asador is the most technically precise piece of cooking I have eaten in New York this year, and it was cooked on a wood fire using a 400-year-old technique. The contradiction is the point.

James Whitfield

Restaurant Critic

The New York Observer

The Invitation

You aren't choosing a restaurant.
You're accepting an invitation.

Tables are set each evening for guests who want to eat slowly, talk freely, and leave knowing something they didn't when they arrived. We seat 28 guests. We close when the fire does.

Outside our delivery range? Take the fire home.

Order the Asado Kit

Quebracho charcoal, three dry-aged cuts, Rodrigo's chimichurri, and a card with the same instructions his father gave him. Serves four. Ships nationwide.

Find us

147 West 23rd Street · New York, NY 10011

Dinner · Tuesday–Sunday · 6 PM–10 PM

Before there was a restaurant,there was a fire.