Francis Mallmann's 7 Fires

What They Are and How to Do Them

If you've spent any real time standing in front of a fire, you'll know there's more than one way to cook with it.

Francis Mallmann (the Argentine chef who preferred open flames in Patagonia over Michelin-starred kitchens) has named seven of them. Not seven recipes. Seven distinct fires. Seven entirely different relationships between heat and food.

In his appearance on Anthony Bourdain's The Mind of a Chef, you watch him cook on his private island in Argentina. The only things he uses is fire, instinct, and decades of practice. It's worth a watch (here's the episode).

Here's what each fire is, what it does, and what tools you'll need if you want to do it properly at home, whether that home is in Buenos Aires, Cape Town, or anywhere with a fire and a good piece of meat.

Who Is Francis Mallmann?

Born in Patagonia, trained in the best French kitchens of Europe, and then, he walked away from all of it.

Mallmann says: "I didn't invent anything. I just took up the tools of the gauchos and the natives. I improved some things, but I didn't invent any recipes. Everything I know and do is in my collective memory from birth or before that."

That's the whole philosophy in one sentence. To him, fire and the food it cooks is a language he is fluent in.

"Cooking with fire is a great language. It's romantic."

His book, Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way, laid out the framework. His restaurants across Argentina, Uruguay, and France live by it. And his appearance on Netflix's Chef's Table made a whole new generation of people question why they'd ever bought a gas braai.

Image by Laura Austen

The 7 Fires of Francis Mallmann

1. Parrilla - The Grill

What it is:
The classic. An open grate over burning wood or coals. This is the South African braai in its purest form. Meat, fire, grid. Done.

But Mallmann's parrilla is not your average backyard setup. He manages his coal bed with precision, adjusting height, position, and heat. Nothing gets rushed.

What you cook:
Steaks, ribs, chicken, fish, chops. Essentially anything that benefits from direct heat and smoke.

The Mallmann approach:
Let the coals calm down before the meat goes on. A fire that's too fierce burns the outside and leaves the inside raw. Patience is everything.

Image from Francis Mallmann Instagram

What you need:
For the parrilla, the food is where your focus is. You want a tong that grips meat cleanly without piercing it, because every hole lets some of the flavour escape. The Donkey Tong 69cm was built for exactly this. Its uniquely shaped head grabs and turns without tearing. 69cm gives you enough reach from the heat, while still keeping you in control of exactly what you're doing.

2. Chapa - The Flat Iron

What it is:
A thick, flat piece of cast iron placed directly over the fire. Think plancha, think flat-top griddle, think the most honest cooking surface there is.

There's no oil on a chapa, typically. The iron heats up, the food goes on, and the contact is direct. It sears fast, chars edges and caramelises naturally.

What you cook:
Prawns, vegetables, cheese, thin cuts of meat, flatbreads, eggs. Anything where you want a hard, fast sear and the fat from the food to do the work.

The Mallmann approach:
He loves the char. He's talked openly about how burning creates a third flavour dimension beyond the raw and the cooked. A chapa delivers that crust like nothing else.

"Fire is such a fragile and beautiful thing," Mallmann has said. The chapa is where you see that most clearly. One moment too long and it's gone.

Image from Francis Mallmann Instagram

What you need:
On the chapa, you're again handling food at close range. The Donkey Tong 69cm is your tool here.

3. Infiernillo - Little Hell

What it is:
Infiernillo translates directly to "little hell." That should tell you everything.

Two fires. One above. One below. Food is placed on a rack between them, cooking simultaneously from both directions. The heat is intense. The cook is exposed. It is not for the impatient.

What you cook:
Products with skin that can withstand the double assault, like chicken pieces and vegetables. The skin protects what's inside while the exterior crisps on both sides at once.

The Mallmann approach:
The infiernillo requires you to build two separate fires and manage them in sync. Both need to be at the same heat level. Too much from the top and the surface burns before the inside cooks. Too much from below and you lose the benefit of the technique entirely.

"There's a silent language to cooking that you can't write down," Mallmann has said. The infiernillo is where that silence matters most. You read the smoke, the sound, the smell. You adjust. You learn.

Image from Francis Mallmann Instagram

What you need:
Starting two fires quickly and getting them to the same temperature level is where The Blower earns its place. Its patent-pending adjustable jet nozzle directs air precisely into the base of each fire. Then, once both fires are burning, the Donkey Long Tong 80cm manages the wood and coals on each side without you having to put your hands anywhere near the heat.

4. Rescoldo - Cooking in Embers

What it is:
This is the oldest cooking method humans ever used. You rake a bed of hot coals and ash, you bury your food in it, and you wait.

Rescoldo means embers in Spanish. Vegetables wrapped in a damp cloth. Sweet potatoes, beetroot, garlic, corn, all placed directly into the ash and covered with glowing coals.

What you cook:
Root vegetables, whole bulbs of garlic, sweetcorn, whole fish wrapped in foil or fig leaves. Anything that has a skin to protect it while the heat transforms the flavours.

The Mallmann approach:
"The slowness is great," Mallmann says. With the rescoldo, vegetables cook for hours. What comes out is smoky, caramelised, and concentrated in flavour. The exterior chars. The interior becomes something you couldn't achieve any other way.

Image from Francis Mallmann Instagram

What you need:
Getting rescoldo right requires building and managing your ember bed properly. You need to be able to spread ash and check heat without getting burned doing it. The Donkey Long Tong 80cm was made for fire management. You can work a deep coal bed without leaning in with this tong.

Pair it with The Paddle to fan the coals to the exact temperature you want before burying the food. 

5. Horno de Barro - The Clay Oven

What it is:
A wood-fired clay oven, built from earth, that holds heat for hours.

This is the horno you'll see in every Argentine estancia and Patagonian farmhouse. Wood burns inside until the walls absorb the heat. Then the coals are raked out, and the food goes in. The residual heat bakes, roasts, and creates a crust unlike anything a gas oven produces.

What you cook:
Empanadas, bread, pizza, whole chickens, butterflied leg of lamb. It gives you a slow, sustained heat. 

The Mallmann approach:
The horno de barro runs all day at Siete Fuegos, his signature restaurant in Mendoza. It never cools completely. Different temperatures at different times of day mean different dishes at different stages. It's a living piece of kitchen equipment.

Image from Marcelo Gonzalez

What you need:
The clay oven is less about tong technique and more about fire management before you load it. You're building a serious wood fire inside a confined space. The Blower helps start your fire without having ash go everywhere and the Donkey Long Tong 80cm moves burning logs when you're ready to cook.

6. Asador - The Cross

What it is:
The most dramatic of the seven fires.

An iron cross (sometimes called a pirca or a cruz) is driven into the ground at an angle, facing a bonfire. A whole animal is butterflied open and wired to the cross. It cooks in the glow and heat of the fire for hours. Not in the flame. In the radiant heat of the coals.

A whole lamb on the asador takes 6 to 8 hours. A whole chicken, 6 to 7. The result, Mallmann says, is meat that is uniformly cooked from surface to bone, with skin that crackles and an interior that stays impossibly moist.

The Mallmann approach:
This is the asado al palo. In South Africa it maps closely to a spit braai, but without the rotation. The animal faces the fire. The heat is constant. The art is in maintaining the right coal bed at the right distance for hours on end.

Image from Francis Mallmann Instagram

What you need:
This is where the Donkey Long Tong 80cm comes into its own. Managing the fire for an asador means constantly rebuilding the coal bed. It means adding wood, repositioning logs and spreading coals to maintain even radiant heat without flare-ups. You are doing this every 30 to 45 minutes for 6 to 8 hours. At 80cm, your hands stay safe. The serrated head grips logs and coals perfectly. You can work the full depth of the fire bed from a safe distance.

7. Caldero - The Iron Cauldron

What it is:
A large cast iron kettle or Dutch oven, set directly over the fire or nestled into the coals. The fire below it is managed to produce a low, sustained heat.

The caldero is South American campfire cooking in its original form. Stews, beans, desserts, soups; everything that needs liquid and time.

What you cook:
Slow-cooked lamb, bean stews, potato soups, fruit desserts, caramelised in butter. Mallmann's Frutas a la Piera (kiwi, bananas, apples, oranges cooked in butter until caramelised, then served with vanilla ice cream) is a caldero classic.

The Mallmann approach:
The caldero needs a fire that's consistent but not fierce. Too much heat and the bottom scorches. Not enough and nothing happens. You're adjusting the flame constantly. Pulling the pot back, banking coals, building the fire up when it drops.

Image from Sinethemba Gomba

What you need:
The fire beneath the caldero needs regular management. The Donkey Long Tong 80cm keeps you at a safe distance while you add wood, spread coals, or pull the pot away from a surge of heat. The Blower can nurse a fire back to life without disturbing the pot or losing your coal position.

The Tool That Connects All Seven

Fire management looks different across all seven techniques. But one thing is consistent: you need a way to reach into the heat safely, move what needs moving, and not get burned doing it.

The Donkey Long Tong 80cm can be used in nearly every technique above, because fire management is the foundation of every one of Mallmann's methods. Handmade in Cape Town from 304 stainless steel with ProNature white oak handles and solid brass rivets.

For the parrilla and the chapa, where the food is the focus, the Donkey Tong 69cm is your braai tong of choice. Its specially shaped head grips without piercing. It gives you the control to work a braai grid properly.

If you want both, get the Donkey Combo. One for fire. One for food.

What Makes Mallmann's Approach Different to a Standard Braai

The honest answer is not that much, and that's the whole point.

Mallmann has said that "every country has to explore and go back to its roots. And mirror those images back to its people through its cooking."

South Africa has been doing this for generations. The braai is not a weekend hobby. It's a fire culture. It's patience, timing, and an instinctive relationship with heat that every serious braai master understands.

What Mallmann does is give that instinct a framework. Seven names and seven techniques. Seven different ways to use fire that you may already be using; you just didn't have words for them.

If you've ever buried sweet potatoes in the coals while your meat was cooking above, that's rescoldo. If you've ever used a potjie over an open fire, that's the caldero. If you've ever slow-cooked a whole spit over a pile of coals for hours, that's the asador.

The philosophy is the same. Stand next to the fire. Pay attention. Don't rush it.

Image from Isaias  Nicolaevici

Want to Experience It For Real? La Isla with Francis Mallmann

Reading about the seven fires is one thing. Standing next to one of them on a private island in Patagonia while Mallmann himself teaches you how to work the fire, that's something else entirely.

Paramour Pursuits offers exactly that. La Isla is an immersive 6-night experience hosted by Francis Mallmann on his private island in the Patagonian wilderness, at the foot of the Andes.

What you get:

• 6 nights on the island with 8-14 other guests

• Daily cooking masterclasses with Mallmann himself

• Hiking, trout fishing, and time completely off-grid

• Paired lunches and dinners cooked over open fire

• Guided travel from Comodoro Rivadavia included

Next trips: November 2026 (Spring) and March 2027 (Summer)

This is learning fire cooking from the man who wrote the book on it. Literally.

Image from Paramour Pursuits

Frequently Asked Questions

Image from Paramour Pursuits