stories:
Travel
Faded Elegance, High Design
Buenos Aires’s San Telmo neighborhood
Beautiful, decrepit, hedonistic, and temperate. Buenos Aires is a city of charming contradictions. You’ve heard about the steak and the Malbec, but you can also get arguably the best Italian food outside of Italy, and the world’s best gelato. And the experience of eating in the city’s restaurants is almost as good as the food itself. There’s nothing quite like saddling up to a communal table at one of the many parrillas: steakhouses-to-the-extreme where entire sides of beef, pork, and goat are skewered whole and roasted all afternoon on giant grills before being carved up and slapped onto your plate.
Wherever you go in BA you’ll find plenty of meat, wine, and tango. Any guide will point you in those directions. But at roughly 77 square miles and almost 3 million people, it can be an overwhelming destination. Besides hitting museums, lounging in plazas, and watching soccer games, the best way to get to know BA is by digging deeper into one or two neighborhoods.
Buenos Aires’s currently trendiest barrio, or neighborhood, Palermo, is a good bet with its fabulous shopping and bars. But everybody goes there. If Palermo is like today’s SoHo, the San Telmo neighborhood is the East Village of a few years back. A working-class zone with cobblestoned streets and wrought-iron balconies, it has recently been colonized by young designers who have opened up clothing boutiques and stationery and housewares shops. Nightlife includes a burgeoning club scene catering to younger folks, and mixed crowds at atmospheric old-fashioned bars. There are good places to eat, see tango, and shop for antiques. But most important, you’ll feel like you’re mingling with the locals rather than being a tourist.
San Telmo is also close to the center of town, within walking distance of must-see attractions like the Casa Rosada, the Obelisco, the Teatro Colón, and Downtown. We’ve selected the best restaurants, bars, tango spots, shops, and hotels in the neighborhood or nearby. With this guide, you’ll be able to spend a week getting a month’s worth of insider BA experiences.
Restaurants
Bars
Tango
Shopping
HotelsPhotographs by Fèlix Busso
Background image by Leonardo Fernandes de Aguiar
An odd assortment, just some thoughts on the choices:
Petanque - "one of the only French eateries in Buenos Aires" - okay, technically accurate, but you may as well say that an Italian spot is one of the "only pasta places in Buenos Aires" - we probably have something on the order of 60-70 French restaurants, including far better choices, in town. And free kir royales for everyone? You just got lucky.
Burzako - great choice for Basque food here.
El Mercado - nice choice, just not in San Telmo - the Faena Hotel + Universe is in Puerto Madero, and this is in the far eastern section - next barrio over from San Telmo.
La Brigada - indeed great steaks. The unfortunate thing about that armed guard at the door is that they're very selective on who they let in - which usually translates to "white". Strangely, they don't do the same thing at their Recoleta outpost, where, given the wealthy neighborhood, you'd almost assume it'd be more likely.
La Farmacia - great fun, good food, and friendly but completely scattered service. Always give a call first - they change their hours of being open roughly every 3 months, with the seasons.
Didn't realize there were separate price categories - Agreed on pretty much all the stuff in the midrange and snacks categories - especially love Des Nivel - and the comment is dead on - it might not be the best steak in town, but it's probably the best steak experience! Only off-note, like the El Mercado under the high end spots, Cafe Tortoni under the snack section is simply not in San Telmo - it's in Monserrat, the next barrio to the north - about a 15 minute walk from San Telmo. And, honestly, never encountered Pirilo (the pizza spot), perhaps it's new, will have to check it out - the classic for San Telmo though is Pedro Telmo, at Bolivar 962 - easily the best pizza in the 'hood.
La Vinerria de Gaullterio Bolivar---
A few people have posted about this place on chowhound already. My partner and I just finished an incredibly exciting meal there and I wanted to post. It is in the San Telmo neighborhood and so apropos to this thread. Bolivar 865 (at Estados Unidos) a small store front run by chef Alejandro Digilio who has worked at El Bulli in Spain. Indeed, the cuisine was seeking that level...very unusual for Buenos Aires...small plate, conceptual food with a purpose. We had 9 courses paired with wine for Argentine $352 for two persons total. I know that this is expensive for Baires but for the level of the cooking, the attention from the staff and personal intneraxctionn with Chef Digilio, and the creativity it seemed like an absolute steal from someone coming from New York. I would compare it favorably with WD-50 in the Lower East Side--but friendlier and more intimate. We definitely left with the impression that this was a new and exciting thing for BsAs. I hope that more people try it out.
Buenos Aires sounds just like those other rowdy boisterous 20's party town that you'd find in Mexico. What a waste.
However, on the other hand, I would imagine it being a good place to have a nice dinner in the open breeze. I've never been there but it seems to get a fair amount of exposure as a place to travel to.
David House
http://www.houseoption.com
I'm sure it's like most Central/South American cities where
you can get a delicious authentic meal from street vendors
(cash only) and in-home eateries. Just have to be careful
and make sure they're clean.
Actually not David, in fact, not one of your assumptions is accurate, though I can understand why you might make them. There's virtually no street food here, it's not part of the culture. Outdoor dining does exist, but it's not the norm. Nor is it a boisterous 20s party town, and nothing like Mexico - sure there is a group of young people who like to party and an area of town with a lively nightlife, like any big city, but most of the city keeps a much slower, old-style pace, quite elegant - very European - not surprising since some 80% of the population have come from either Spain or Italy during the last couple of generations. The in-home restaurant experience does exist, my place is part of it - but it's not like the paladares of Cuba or similar spots in Central America - a large number of them are run by professional chefs who are either trying out ideas for a future restaurant or have, like myself, retired from fulltime work but prefer to keep our hand in, just not 6 days a week....