Restaurants

Buenos Aires offers world-class dining with a variety of Argentine and international restaurants and cuisines. With the collapse of the peso, fine dining in Buenos Aires has also become marvelously inexpensive.

Nothing matches the meat from the Pampas grass-fed Argentine cows, and that meat is the focus of the dining experience throughout the city, from the humblest parrilla (grill) to the finest business-class restaurant. Empanadas, dough pockets filled with minced meat and other ingredients, are also an Argentine staple, offered almost everywhere.

In this section I'll go over what you can expect to find in Buenos Aires's varied restaurants and where certain types of food are found within the city's various neighborhoods.

Buenos Aires's most fashionable places for eating out are all found in Palermo. Palermo Hollywood and Palermo Soho, the two divisions of this neighborhood, are full of trendy hot spots combining fine dining with a bohemian atmosphere in small, renovated, turn-of-the-20th-century houses. These restaurants have attracted some of the city's top chefs, many of whom have received their training in France and Spain. Some of the most exquisite and interesting cuisine in the city is available in the venues in Palermo Viejo. This year's book represents an expansion of this area since the last edition, which you'll greatly enjoy. Both Palermo Viejo and Las Cañitas, another division of Palermo well known for dining and nightlife, are near the D subway line, but the best restaurants are often a long walk from metro stations. That and the 11pm closing of the subway stations means you are best off with cabs to and from these restaurants. Where possible, I give the cross streets for these restaurants to help give guidance to your taxi drivers.

Puerto Madero's docks are lined with more top restaurants, along with a mix of chains and hit-or-miss spots. The Microcentro and Recoleta offer many outstanding restaurants and cafes, some of which have been on the map for decades. Buenos Aires's cafe life, where friends meet over coffee, is as sacred a ritual to Porteños as it is to Parisians. Excellent places to enjoy a cafe con leche include La Biela in Recoleta, across from the world-famous Recoleta Cemetery, and Café Tortoni, one of the city's most beautiful and traditional cafes, on Avenida de Mayo close to Plaza de Mayo. These are two places you should not miss if you want to experience Buenos Aires's cafe life.

Porteños eat breakfast until 10am, lunch between noon and 4pm, and dinner late -- usually after 9pm, though some restaurants open as early as 7pm. If you are an early-bird diner in the North American and British style, wanting to eat from 5pm on, look for restaurants in my listings that remain open between lunch and dinner. If you can make a reservation, I highly recommend doing so. If you do not want to commit, go to a restaurant at the typical 8pm opening time, when you will almost always arrive to a nearly empty restaurant. However, as the clock hits 9pm, virtually every table at the best restaurants will suddenly become completely filled.

Executive lunch menus (usually fixed-price three-course meals) are offered at many restaurants beginning at noon, but most dinner menus are a la carte. There is sometimes a small "cover" charge for bread and other items placed at the table. In restaurants that serve pasta, the pasta and its sauce are sometimes priced separately. Standard tipping is 10% in Buenos Aires, more for exceptional service. When paying by credit card, you will often be expected to leave the propina (tip) in cash, since many credit card receipts don't provide a place to include the tip. Be aware that some new restaurants are not yet accepting credit cards, due to still-resonating fears from the peso collapse. Many restaurants close between lunch and dinner, and some close on Sunday or Monday completely, or only offer dinner. In January and February many restaurants offer very limited hours and service, or close for vacations as this is the traditional time when Porteños flee the city to the beach resorts. It's a good idea to call ahead of time during these months to make sure you don't make a trip out to a place only to become disappointed by a closed and locked door.

Though Buenos Aires is a very cosmopolitan city, it is surprisingly not a very ethnically diverse place, at least on the surface. However, the influences of Middle Eastern and Jewish immigrants who came to this city in the wake of World War I are reflected in a few areas. Middle Eastern restaurants are clustered in Palermo Viejo, near the subte station Scalabrini Ortiz, and also on Calle Armenia. I list several of them below. Since Once and Abasto were the traditional neighborhoods for Jewish immigrants, you'll find many kosher restaurants (some traditional, others recently opened by young people trying to bring back the cuisine they remember their grandparents cooking) along Calle Tucumán in particular. Because many Buenos Aires Jews are Sephardic or of Middle Eastern descent, you'll also find Arabic influences here.

With a renewed definition of what it means to be Argentine, native Indian and Incan influences are also finding their way into some Argentine restaurants. Again, with the neighborhood's view on experimental dining, the best of these are found in Palermo Viejo. Two to try out are the parrilla Lo De Pueyrredón, owned by a descendant of one of the country's most important families, and Bio, a vegetarian restaurant using the Incan grain quinoa in many dishes.

As there are almost as many Italian last names as Spanish ones, it's hard to call those of Italian descent a specific ethnic group within Argentina as you can in the United States, Canada, or Australia. As such, Buenos Aires's Italian food is Argentine food in essence, and pastas and other Italian dishes are usually folded in with traditional Argentine offerings such as grilled beef. La Boca is Buenos Aires's historic Little Italy, the place where Italian immigrants first settled at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The atmosphere in these restaurants plays on this past and caters to tourists, but this is not where the city's best Italian food is served. Instead, it is usually found in old, simple parrillas that have operated for decades and include pastas on their menus. Throughout this chapter, most of these are in the "inexpensive" categories all over the city. Additionally, though it is on the pricey side, check out Piegari in Recoleta's La Recova restaurant area, which has some of the best northern Italian cuisine in the city.

Asians only make up a tiny portion of Buenos Aires's population and, as a whole, have had little effect on cuisine offerings. Still, in keeping with international trends, you'll find sushi bars and other restaurants with Japanese and Chinese influences throughout Buenos Aires. All over the city, you will find sushi fast-food-chain restaurants as well. For Asian authenticity, I also describe a few restaurants in Belgrano's very tiny and little-known Chinatown district.

If you are looking through these listings and still cannot decide what you want to eat, three areas are so loaded with restaurants of all types, one after another, that you are bound to find something that pleases you. Puerto Madero's historic dock buildings are one such place, and it's a bonus that many of the restaurants here are a bargain. Calle Báez in the Las Cañitas area of Palermo is another such area, and is also one of the most happening restaurant scenes in the whole city. Finally, restaurants and bars offering food surround Plaza Serrano in Palermo Hollywood, with many a good choice for the young, funky, and bargain-minded. All of these areas also have plenty of nearby places for heading out for after-dinner drinks and dancing, so you won't have to move all over the city to spend a night out.

If you still can't make up your mind and want some second opinions, check out www.restaurant.com.ar. It provides information in English and Spanish on restaurants in Buenos Aires and other major cities, and allows you to search by neighborhood as well as cuisine type.

Once in Buenos Aires, look for the De Dios map company's excellent restaurant map in bookstores everywhere, or order it ahead of time at www.dediosonline.com. Many Palermo Viejo restaurants are on a special Palermo Viejo dining map available at most of the venues in this neighborhood that are listed. Many other neighborhoods, such as San Telmo, also have similar maps.

I list exact prices for main courses and group restaurants into price categories. However, it's all relative. For instance, I have Expensive and Very Expensive categories, but these meals would not be considered pricey by North American or European standards. And in some cases, Inexpensive and Moderate overlap, or a single menu item, such as lobster, might push an ordinarily Inexpensive restaurant into a Very Expensive category. In short, take a look at the specific prices, which are expressed in a range, rather than solely at the categories. With the current exchange rates, it is very difficult to overspend on food in Argentina. Inexpensive restaurants have main courses ranging from under US$1 (50p) to about US$4 to US$5 (£2.10-£2.65); Moderate restaurants have prices ranging from around US$3 to about US$8 (£1.60-£4.20). Expensive restaurants have main courses of about US$8 to US$13 (£4.20-£6.90); and Very Expensive restaurants range from about US$13 to US$25 or more (£6.90-£13). Remember that in all restaurants, lunch is usually cheaper, and that there may also be Executive or Tourist menus, which provide a very reasonably priced three-course meal. Tips, drinks, desserts, other menu items, as well as table service and the unavoidable charge for bread and spreads, will add to your costs. Keep in mind also that while English is becoming more and more prevalent in Buenos Aires, less expensive restaurants tend to have fewer English speakers on staff.

Bares y Cafés Notables -- If you want to dine in an atmosphere recalling the glory days of Buenos Aires's past, choose one from the list of nearly 40 bares y cafés notables, historic restaurants, cafes, and bars that have been specially protected by a law stating that their interiors cannot be changed. Known as Law No. 35, this special protection granted by the city of Buenos Aires was passed in 1998 and updated in 2002. I list many of these special establishments in this chapter, including Café Tortoni, La Biela, and Bar El Federal. Naturally, based on age, these notables cluster in Monserrat, Congreso, La Boca, and San Telmo, the city's oldest areas. Ask the tourism office for the map Bares y Cafés Notables de Buenos Aires, which lists them all and includes photographs of their interiors. If you really like the atmosphere in these unique spots, you can bring a part of them home with you, since they all sell a coffee-table book with photos from these wonderful places.

Wine Tasting -- Part of what makes a meal in Buenos Aires so good is the fine wine selection available, specially chosen to complement beef, chicken, fish, and other items on the menu. Most Argentine wine comes from the Mendoza district, bordering the Andean mountains. Malbecs make up most of the best, with cabernets, champagnes, and even grappas on the menus in the humblest to the most expensive restaurants. If you know nothing about wine, to make sense of the selections and suggestions offered by the waiter or sommelier, you may want to take a wine-tasting class. They are offered all over the city, but I recommend two of them above all others. On the high end of the scale, go to the Hotel Alvear's Cave de Vines, which will run you about US$65 (£34) per person. My other choice is out of the wine-based restaurant Club del Vino, which will cost only about US$12 (£6.35) per person. For those prices, you'll get about an hour with a sommelier who will explain to you (and a group of other interested people) the winegrowing process, the harvest, and how the wine is actually produced. Like fine diamonds, wine is judged by color and clarity, and you'll learn what to look for in every glass. Other points include discerning taste and scent points as well as how to hold a glass of wine without damaging its contents with your hand's body heat to truly enjoy it. After coming to one of these classes, you'll never be embarrassed again when someone asks you what wine goes with what main course.