Today we’d like to introduce you to Germán Sitz.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My story began in La Pampa, where I grew up surrounded by the culture of the countryside and a deep respect for product. I trained professionally with Martín Berasategui in Spain, an experience that gave me the technical rigor I needed before returning to Argentina, where I founded La Carnicería with my partner, Pedro Peña.
Our idea was always to break paradigms. That is how Niño Gordo, Chori, Paquito and the rest of the projects that now make up our group were born. Each one has its own identity, but they are all rooted in the same belief: that gastronomy can be much more than a place where people eat well. It can be culture, identity and its own language.
Being in Miami today is the natural evolution of that desire to bring our Pampean and Palermo identity to the world. With Niño Gordo in Wynwood, that identity has found a new home in a neighborhood that shares the same creative, energetic and unexpected spirit. It allows us to bring our way of cooking, thinking and building restaurants to a new audience, while staying true to the fire, product and personality that have always defined us.
At the center of it all, this is a human project. None of these restaurants would exist without the teams that bring them to life every day with commitment, instinct and personality. Miami is only one part of the journey, and we want to keep creating, collaborating with people we admire and bringing our way of doing things to new places, while always preserving what matters most: authenticity.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not at all. The road is never linear. Maintaining consistency and quality while the group continued to grow has been a constant challenge. It is not just about opening restaurants, but about building teams that feel the same passion we do.
Without a doubt, the challenge that marked us most was leaving Argentina to land in Miami. We went from Buenos Aires, which is our home and a place we know by heart, to a completely new and different stage.
Adapting our “Asian parrilla” to a different culture, while maintaining our DNA and understanding the local rules of the game, was a true test of our ability to learn and teach. We were able to navigate that thanks to incredible people who helped us tremendously, from Eduardo Suárez, who as a designer helped us finish the buildout and solve a thousand issues, to established Miami colleagues like Cezar Zapata and Diego Oka, who had the humility and generosity to open their doors and guide us.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Niño Gordo Wynwood?
I dedicate myself to creating restaurants with a strong identity, where the cuisine, the space and the experience all live within the same idea. I am not interested in opening “correct” places. I am interested in building worlds. In the case of Niño Gordo, that world blends fire, Asian culture, urban aesthetics and a very visceral energy that you feel the moment you walk in.
My specialty is conceptualizing and executing culinary projects that are coherent from end to end – from the product to the music, from the service to the architecture. I work a lot from intuition, but also with a high level of obsession for detail and operations. To me, a good idea without execution is worth nothing.
I think I am known for pushing the limits of what a restaurant can be in Argentina and now abroad as well. For daring to break from the traditional, but always from a genuine place, never forced. Nothing is there just because.
What I am most proud of is the team we have built and the fact that we have created projects with a clear and recognizable identity, projects that make people feel something and do not go unnoticed. I am also proud that we have been able to bring that identity to another market like Miami without diluting it.
What sets us apart is that we do not follow trends. We interpret them, or sometimes ignore them completely. We work with product, with fire, with culture, but above all with a very personal point of view. We are not trying to please everyone. We are trying to stay true to what we do. And to me, that is the only thing that builds something solid in the long term.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://niniogordo.us/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xniniogordomiax/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@niniogordomiami
