The Argentinian Comfort Food You Should Always Have In Your Freezer

Our absolute craving 🤤

The Deligram shines a spotlight on the many incredible food artisans in New York. In our last feature, we visited Faccia Brutto’s Patrick Miller, the chef-turned-spirits maker who, along with his business partner, makes every single bottle they sell. This week, we spoke to a trio: husband and wife duo Fermin Couto and Juana Montenegro and their friend Hugo Heinz, the founders of Milasburg, a Williamsburg-based business selling frozen beef milanesas. After moving to New York from Argentina, they found themselves missing the taste and comfort of the crispy, iconic dish, and, after a few successful dinners and friends’ requests for bulk milanesas, they were inspired to bring the comfort food to a much wider audience.

The Product: Frozen Argentinian milanesas, thinly sliced beef cutlets that are marinated overnight and coated in homemade breadcrumbs that are ready to cook at home.
How To Buy: DM @milasburg on Instagram for pick up in Williamsburg or delivery via Uber connect.
Price: $16.5 per pound, with a minimum order of 1 pound.

Hugo: We all moved from Argentina to New York within the past couple of years. I grew up in Miami, living there for 20 years, and always wanted to live in New York. When I got the opportunity to move here with my sister, it was a no-brainer. As a chef, I can basically move anywhere – I travel doing events with Agustin Mallmann and I also do private cheffing. Fermin and I actually met through working with Mallmann. When we moved to New York, we found a community of Argentinians who we befriended. We all have traditional Argentinian foods that we miss, and one of those dishes is the milanesa.

Juana: [Fermin and I] originally came here because of my job about two years ago. I'm an architect and I used to work in Buenos Aires until my firm transferred me here. [Milanesas] are something we grew up with that’s very easy to get. In college, I’d go to the butcher shop near me looking for premade milanesas, and if they didn’t have them my mom would make me a batch and I’d freeze them. It’s extremely common. Butchers in Argentina know exactly what cut of meat is best to use and will cut it by hand specifically for milanesas, but that’s much more difficult to come by here. You can go to Whole Foods and ask the butcher to cut your meat in this specific way but they look at you like, “what?”

Hugo: So we would have our friends over on weekends, sometimes we’d make milanesas and they would love it. They were like, "Can you make bigger batches and sell them to us?” That kind of sparked the idea. Most of our clientele is Argentinian, but we also want to show people in New York what a milanesa is. And since so many people don’t cook very often, we also wanted to provide a product that’s easy to have in the freezer made with good quality produce. We source grass-fed, Black Angus eye of round from a purveyor in New Zealand. It’s a very lean cut of meat where most of the fat is on the outside. We trim the fat, cut the meat, and marinate it for 24 hours to ensure the meat stays juicy and tasty. People don’t usually have the time to marinate it, but we’re very patient [laughs]. And then we’ll bread the milanesas the next day. The first month we opened was crazy. Fermin and I were making 100 pounds a week, and every week we were sold out.

Juana: We had our first pop up a couple weeks ago and it blew my mind. We completely sold out of 185 sandwiches in three hours. It’s been so organic, all the sales we’ve been doing are via word of mouth. We haven’t started doing wholesale yet.

Hugo: In the near future we’ll be looking at spots for a storefront from where we can coordinate deliveries and pickup. 

Juana: Our goal is to have a shop in Williamsburg in a year where we can have a window or booth to sell milanesa sandwiches. 

Fermin: I imagine we’ll offer sandwiches, or the milanesa by itself without bread, or a milanesa on a plate with a side. Maybe Hugo and I can start making some specials, but [a place to] serve milanesas and, eventually, wine is the goal.  

Juana: We also have a lot of people writing in from the West Coast and Miami, so we need to figure out nationwide shipping. 

Hugo: It’s crazy how many Argentinians are all around the US who see the product and are willing to pay in shipping to get them. We’ve been doing Uber Connect for our clients in Manhattan who can’t come all the way to Williamsburg. That can get a little expensive sometimes, so people will grab a couple of other friends to place an order together. One day we got really lucky and a guy from Colombia bought 40lbs of milanesa for a friend here, so we sent over 15 bags in an Uber, which was like 250 milanesa. So ideally we’d like to scale it up to offering the frozen milanesas in grocery stores so you can get Milasburg milanesas nationwide.

How to best enjoy the milanesas:

Hugo: You can fry, bake, or air fry the milanesas. During the week I’ll usually have it for lunch when I’m making a salad and don’t have enough time for much else. But honestly it goes well with anything – couscous, rice, honeynut squash… . There’s something called a florentina with creamed spinach and cheese on top of a milanesa. You could do that, or milanesa a caballo with two fried eggs. And we always send our milanesas with a lemon. 

As Argentinians we all have our different preferences for what to serve alongside a milanesa; it really depends on how you were raised. I’m from a family of seven and we had milanesas maybe once a week. We always had it with mashed potatoes, but I know Fermin grew up eating it with fideos (spaghetti).

Fermin: And french fries. Sometimes I like to top it with tomato sauce and cheese, a milanesa napolitana. 

Juana: I used to eat them with shredded carrots and boiled eggs. But now? Pasta all the way. 

Favorite restaurants to eat in NY: 

Fermin: I would say Thai Diner, Via Carota, and Little Alley. 

Juana: Okonomi [+ Yuko Ramen]. It’s a small place two blocks from our house that only serves 12 people, we get ramen there. I also really love Lilia. 

Hugo: Mine is Four Horsemen – they always do a great job – and then L’Industrie Pizzeria. I always take friends there when they visit. 

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Story by Megan Perry. Edited by Sarah Leon.

Photos by Teddy Wolff for The Deligram. 

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.