Las Violetas: Elegance in Almagro
Historic and elegant, Las Violetas café, patisserie and restaurant is an essential stop on any Buenos Aires café tour. Now over 125 years old, Las Violetas remains extraordinarily popular. Every weekend afternoon tea-hungry diners form an orderly line outside its curved-glass doors to wait for one of the marble-topped tables. Declared a Buenos Aires’ Heritage [...]
Nonna Bianca—Grandma’s Gelato in San Telmo
For ice cream in San Telmo, near the Plaza Dorrego area, skip the fancy Freddo chain on the corner of Defensa and Estados Unidos and head just a few yards down the block to grandma’s authentic alternative, Nonna Bianca, specializing in homemade Italian-style gelato. With its outdoor benches and homey wooden interior you’ll feel like [...]
La Poesía – A Literary Cafe in San Telmo
Do you remember the cafe La Poesía, that magic night in San Telmo? Buenos Aires devised our meeting, so romantic and sweet, Lulú —Horacio Ferrer (from the song, Lulú) La Poesía is a place to toast the writers of Buenos Aires in a bona fide San Telmo literary venue. Housed in a turn of the [...]
Mark’s Deli-–N.Y. Style Sandwiches in Palermo Soho
Mark’s Deli and Coffee House brings a taste of the Big Apple to the upscale confines of Palermo Soho. Here you’ll find stacked made-to-order deli sandwiches on home-baked breads, an interesting variety of salads and specialty coffee drinks being dished out to a constant flow of cash splashing Palermo elite and guidebook-toting foreigners. The refreshing [...]
Post Data — A Postal Themed Cafe in Recoleta
A postal themed cafe and pastry shop a stone’s throw from the tombs of Recoleta cemetery, Post•Data is so twee and wonderfully decorated that Hansel and Gretel are probably regular customers. Pretty stamps form the stripes on the wallpaper, old postcards and letters dangle from the ceiling as mobiles and vivid colors glisten on the [...]
Café Retiro — Retiro Station’s Old World Café & Restaurant
Café Retiro reveals Buenos Aires’ former glory days like many similar cafes in the Argentine capital, yet here the grand interior contrast sharply with the chaos found outside it’s confines. Whether you’re passing through Retiro, waiting for a train to the suburbs or have come to admire the architecture of Retiro station, it’s worth making [...]
Pride Cafe — San Telmo’s Queer Daytime Hangout
San Telmo’s first gay but hetero-friendly coffee and lunch joint is modern and fresh and the GQ-pretty customers only add to the sunny well-scrubbed feel of this daytime café. Here you’ll find all sorts of ‘queer coffee’ drinks, international magazines to peruse, music videos of various divas gyrating on screen, modern art on the walls [...]
The Grand Café Tortoni — A Classic on Avenida de Mayo
If you are only going to visit one café in Buenos Aires, the Grand Café Tortoni would be a good choice. The quintessential Porteño café, located on Avenida de Mayo was founded in 1858 and has remained the meeting place for famous artists and scholars throughout its 154 years. High profile visitors include Albert [...]
The Allure of the Buenos Aires’ Cafe
In order to get a feel for the soul of Buenos Aires, it’s necessary to sample a variety of Buenos Aires eateries for a taste of Porteño life. The café cum-bar-restaurants you see on just about every city block are communal affairs meant for long hours of lingering and conversation. In the mornings sleepy-looking suits [...]
