Wanderlines
Aerial view of Avenida 9 de Julio and the Obelisco in Buenos Aires
Argentina · Río de la Plata

Buenos Aires

A European capital built on the wrong side of the Atlantic, with the widest avenue in the world, the best beef, a dance invented in its brothels and a night that starts at midnight.

Jump to foodHighlights
Photo via Pexels
Overview

The Paris of the South, with better steak

Buenos Aires grew rich on beef and wheat between 1880 and 1930 and spent the money on Paris: Haussmann avenues, Beaux-Arts palaces, an opera house to rival La Scala and cafés with waiters in waistcoats. Three million people live in the city proper and thirteen million in the sprawl, on a flat plain beside a river so wide it looks like the sea.

The barrios are the way in. Recoleta for the cemetery and the mansions, San Telmo for the cobbles and the Sunday market, La Boca for the painted houses and the football, Palermo for the parks, the restaurants and the nights, Puerto Madero for the regenerated docks, and the Microcentro for the Obelisco, the Casa Rosada and the cafés of Avenida de Mayo.

Four days covers the barrios, a milonga, a parrilla and the Colón. A week adds the Tigre delta, the Costanera Sur reserve, a football match and a day across the river in Colonia.

The cityscape of Buenos Aires
Centro & MonserratPlaza de Mayo, the Casa Rosada, the Obelisco, Teatro Colón, Avenida de Mayo and Café Tortoni.
Recoleta & RetiroThe cemetery, the Beaux-Arts palaces, the Floralis, the museums and the French-style cafés.
San Telmo & La BocaCobbled streets, antiques, the Sunday fair, Caminito and the Bombonera.
PalermoSoho and Hollywood for restaurants, bars and street art; the Bosques for the parks, the Rosedal and MALBA.
Highlights

What to see first

Nine places. The city is flat and the Subte is cheap, but the barrios are best walked.

The Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires under a blue sky
The centre

Plaza de Mayo and the Casa Rosada

The square where the country has gathered since 1810: the pink presidential palace with the balcony Evita spoke from, the Cabildo of the colonial council, the Metropolitan Cathedral where Pope Francis was archbishop, and the white headscarves painted on the paving for the Mothers of the Disappeared, who still march on Thursday afternoons. Free guided tours of the Casa Rosada at weekends.

Plaza de Mayo in detail →
A marble statue of a seated woman and an angel in Recoleta cemetery
Recoleta

Recoleta Cemetery

A city of the dead in marble and granite: 4,700 vaults along paved streets, Art Nouveau angels, Art Deco mausoleums and the Duarte family tomb where Eva Perón lies behind a wall of brass plaques. Presidents, generals, boxers and the girl buried alive. Foreigners pay an entry fee; the free guided tours in English are worth timing a visit for. Then the Pilar church next door and the cafés on the square.

Recoleta Cemetery in detail →
The stained-glass dome inside the Teatro Colón
Opera house

Teatro Colón

Opened in 1908 and ranked with La Scala and the Palais Garnier, the Colón seats 2,500 under a dome painted by Raúl Soldi, with acoustics that singers call the best in the world. Guided tours run daily through the foyers, the Golden Hall and the auditorium; a ticket to an opera, ballet or concert in season, March to December, is the better way in, and the cheap upper tiers cost less than a steak.

Teatro Colón in detail →
The colourful streets of Caminito in La Boca
La Boca

Caminito and the Bombonera

The old Genoese dockers' barrio, where the corrugated-iron houses were painted with leftover ship paint and the tango was born in the bars. Caminito is a three-block open-air museum of colour, street tango and souvenir stalls, worth an hour; La Bombonera, Boca Juniors' stadium two streets away, is worth a match if you can get a ticket, and the museum and stand tour if you cannot. Stay on the tourist blocks and leave before dark.

La Boca in detail →
Inside the covered San Telmo market in Buenos Aires
Sunday · Antiques

San Telmo

The oldest barrio, of cobbles, colonial houses and antique shops, with the 1897 iron-and-glass Mercado de San Telmo at its heart, now half antiques and half food stalls. On Sundays the Feria de San Telmo fills Calle Defensa for a kilometre from Plaza de Mayo to Plaza Dorrego, with street tango on the square and the antiques dealers out on the pavement. Go any day for the market and the parrillas; go Sunday for the show.

San Telmo in detail →
A statue and flowerbeds in a Buenos Aires park
Palermo

The Bosques de Palermo and MALBA

The city's great park, laid out in the 1870s: lakes with pedal boats, the Rosedal with 18,000 roses in October and November, the Japanese garden, the planetarium and joggers at every hour. On its edge, MALBA holds the best collection of Latin American art on the continent, with Frida Kahlo, Berni, Xul Solar and Tarsila do Amaral. Hire a bike; it is how porteños use the place.

Bosques de Palermo in detail →
The Puente de la Mujer and apartment towers of Puerto Madero at night
Waterfront

Puerto Madero and the Costanera Sur

The 1890s docks, derelict for decades and now the city's newest barrio: red-brick warehouses turned into restaurants, Calatrava's Puente de la Mujer footbridge, the tallest towers in the country and the museum frigate Sarmiento. Behind it lies the Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur, 350 hectares of marsh and grassland on reclaimed land, with 300 bird species and the only riverbank in the city. Details in the nature section.

Costanera Sur in detail →
The interior of El Ateneo Grand Splendid bookshop with its theatre balconies
Recoleta · Barrio Norte

El Ateneo, the Floralis and Avenida de Mayo

El Ateneo Grand Splendid is a 1919 theatre turned bookshop, with the boxes as reading rooms and a café on the stage. The Floralis Genérica, a 23-metre steel flower in the Plaza de las Naciones Unidas, opens its petals at dawn and closes them at dusk. Avenida de Mayo, between the Congreso and the Plaza, is the grand boulevard of Spanish-style palaces, the Palacio Barolo and its lighthouse tower, and Café Tortoni, open since 1858.

El Ateneo & Avenida de Mayo in detail →
A couple at a sunlit riverside station in Tigre
Day trips

Tigre and Colonia

Tigre, an hour north by train, is the gateway to the Paraná delta: stilt houses, rowing clubs, the Puerto de Frutos market and wooden commuter launches that run the channels. Colonia del Sacramento, an hour across the river by ferry in Uruguay, is a Portuguese colonial town of cobbled lanes, a lighthouse and sycamore shade, and the easiest second country you will ever visit. Both are full days.

Colonia in detail → Tigre delta →
Nature & walks

A flat city, a wide river and a delta

The pampas are the flattest land on earth, so the walking here is urban and the wild bits are wet: a nature reserve on reclaimed land behind the docks, the parks of Palermo, and the maze of islands and channels an hour up the river.

The Buenos Aires skyline seen across the water
Easy

Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur

In the 1970s the city dumped the rubble of its demolished avenues into the river behind Puerto Madero and then abandoned the project. The marsh that grew over it is now the best urban birding site in South America: 350 hectares of lagoons, reedbeds and pampas grass with coscoroba and black-necked swans, southern screamers, rufous horneros, guira cuckoos, coypu and the occasional lizard the size of a dog, against the towers of the city. Gravel tracks loop round the lagoons to the river wall.

8 kmfull loop
2–3 hwalking
300bird species recorded

Open Tuesday to Sunday from eight; closed on Mondays and after heavy rain. Go early with binoculars, then eat at the choripán carts along the Costanera outside the gate.

Full route guide →
A brass compass on the dashboard of a wooden boat in Tigre
Easy

The Tigre delta by launch or kayak

The Paraná delta is 14,000 square kilometres of islands, willow and silt channels that begins an hour from the Obelisco. From the Tigre fluvial station the wooden lanchas colectivas, the delta's buses, run to the islands past rowing clubs, stilt houses and floating grocery boats; get off at a recreo for lunch and a swim, or take a guided kayak from Tigre into the smaller arroyos where the capybaras and kingfishers are. The Puerto de Frutos market and the Tigre art museum, in a Belle Époque casino on the river, fill the rest of the day.

1 hby train from Retiro
Half dayon the water
Flateffort

The Mitre line from Retiro is the cheap way; the Tren de la Costa from Maipú is the pretty one. Weekends are busy with porteños doing the same thing.

Full route guide →
Easy · by bike

The Bosques de Palermo

Palermo · any time; roses October–November

Lakes, the Rosedal, the Japanese garden and 25 kilometres of paths. The city's free bikes and the hire stands at the lake make a two-hour loop of it.

Full route guide →
Half day

Ribera Norte and Vicente López

North along the river by train

Two smaller riverside reserves on the way to Tigre, with marsh birds and the only sand on the city's river. Combine with the Tigre day.

Full route guide →
Overnight

An estancia on the pampas

San Antonio de Areco, 2 hours west

The gaucho town and its surrounding estancias: horses across the flat, an asado under the trees, silversmiths in the town and the gaucho festival in November. One night is the right length.

Full route guide →
Good food

The parrilla, and the city that grew up around it

Argentines eat more beef than anyone, and Buenos Aires is where it is cooked best, over wood and embers on the parrilla. Around the steak sit the Italian inheritance of pasta, pizza and ice cream, the Spanish one of tapas and empanadas, and a new generation of kitchens that has made this the most awarded dining city in South America.

Beef grilling over embers at an Argentine asado
Eat this

The parrilla

Order the cuts: ojo de bife (rib-eye), bife de chorizo (sirloin), entraña (skirt), asado de tira (short ribs) and vacío (flank), with chimichurri, a provoleta of grilled cheese to start and morcilla and chorizo from the grill as the first course. Argentines eat it a punto, medium; ask for jugoso if you want it pink. Dinner starts at nine and the good tables are booked.

An empanada cut in half showing the meat filling
Eat this

Empanadas, choripán and pizza

Empanadas are the snack and the lunch: beef with egg and olive, ham and cheese, humita of sweetcorn, each province folded differently. Choripán, a grilled chorizo in a baguette with chimichurri, is eaten standing at the carts along the Costanera. Porteño pizza is thick, cheesy and half Italian, half its own thing, eaten at the counter with a slice of fainá, the chickpea flatbread, on top.

A tower of alfajores filled with dulce de leche
Eat this

Dulce de leche, alfajores and merienda

Dulce de leche, the slow-cooked milk caramel, goes into everything: the alfajor sandwich biscuits, the flan, the pancakes and the ice cream, which Buenos Aires makes better than most of Italy. Merienda, the five o'clock coffee with medialunas, the small sweet croissants, is the fourth meal, taken in the notable cafés with their waiters and marble. Mate, the bitter herbal infusion in a gourd, is shared everywhere but rarely sold.

Latin America's 50 Best

Eight of the restaurants on the 2025 list are in this city, more than anywhere else on the continent.

Latin America's 50 Best · No. 3

Don Julio

Guatemala 4699, Palermo · lunch and dinner, book weeks ahead

Pablo Rivero's corner parrilla, number one in Latin America in 2024 and the most famous steakhouse in the world: grass-fed beef from its own herd, dry-aged in the window, a cellar of 20,000 bottles of Argentine wine, and a glass of sparkling for the queue outside. The ojo de bife and the vacío, with the chorizo to start.

AR$ 90,000–150,000 · $$$$
Latin America's 50 Best · No. 21

Niño Gordo

Thames 1810, Palermo · dinner

A red-lit Asian grill where Argentine beef meets Japanese and Korean technique: the katsu sando, the whole roast bife with kimchi, the scallop tiradito. Loud, playful and very good.

AR$ 50,000–90,000 · $$$
Latin America's 50 Best · No. 24

El Preferido de Palermo

Jorge Luis Borges 2108, Palermo · lunch and dinner

The Don Julio team's 1950s bodegón on a pink corner, restored and taken seriously: house-cured charcuterie, tortilla, milanesas, cold cuts and the Argentine canteen classics at their best. Lunch here is the city's great value table.

AR$ 40,000–70,000 · $$$
Latin America's 50 Best · No. 27

El Mercado

Faena Hotel, Puerto Madero · lunch and dinner

A parrilla and wood oven inside the Faena, cooking the market's produce on the grill and in the clay oven, with the hotel's theatre as the room. The Sunday asado is the one to book.

AR$ 60,000–100,000 · $$$$
Latin America's 50 Best · No. 35

Aramburu

Pasaje del Correo, Recoleta · dinner, book

Gonzalo Aramburu's 18-course tasting menu in a glass-walled room off a Recoleta arcade: Argentine ingredients, French precision and theatre on the plate. The most decorated kitchen in the country and the one for the occasion.

AR$ 250,000–350,000 · $$$$
Latin America's 50 Best · No. 36

Trescha

Murillo 725, Villa Crespo · dinner, book

Tomás Treschanski's ten-seat counter, where a young chef trained in London and the Basque Country cooks a long menu of small, exact plates in front of you. The hardest table in the city and worth the planning.

AR$ 250,000–350,000 · $$$$
Latin America's 50 Best · No. 40

Crizia

Fitz Roy 1819, Palermo · dinner

Gabriel Oggero's seafood restaurant in a cattle country: Patagonian oysters, king crab, octopus and fish from both coasts, cooked over fire in a big, handsome room. Where to eat when you have had enough beef.

AR$ 80,000–130,000 · $$$$
Latin America's 50 Best · No. 50

Julia

Loyola 807, Villa Crespo · dinner

Julio Báez's small neighbourhood restaurant with a short, changing menu of what came in that morning, cooked simply and plated beautifully. Twenty-odd seats; book.

AR$ 60,000–100,000 · $$$

Bib Gourmand

Bib Gourmand

Mengano

Cabrera 5172, Palermo · dinner

Facundo Kelemen's reworked bodegón: a short menu of fifteen plates, handmade pasta, milanesa and a good cellar in a small, warm room.

AR$ 35,000–60,000 · $$
Bib Gourmand

Anafe

Virrey Avilés 3216, Colegiales · dinner, Saturday lunch

Two chefs cooking shareable plates off the parrilla with the flavours of their travels; the Saturday fried chicken is the famous dish.

AR$ 35,000–60,000 · $$
Bib Gourmand

Reliquia

Carranza 1601, Palermo · lunch and dinner, Sunday brunch

Family-style rustic cooking in a cosy room: slow braises, vegetables from the oven, a Sunday brunch worth the queue.

AR$ 30,000–55,000 · $$
Bib Gourmand

Chuchú

Palermo · dinner

Small plates, natural wines and a kitchen that changes with the market, in a bar-like room that fills with the neighbourhood.

AR$ 30,000–55,000 · $$
Bib Gourmand

La Alacena Trattoria

Gascón 1401, Palermo · lunch and dinner

Julieta Oriolo's trattoria: hand-rolled pasta, Italian grandmother cooking done with care, and a bakery counter for the way home.

AR$ 30,000–55,000 · $$
Bib Gourmand

Caseros

Avenida Caseros 486, San Telmo · lunch and dinner

A corner bistro on San Telmo's prettiest avenue, with a seasonal menu, a pavement terrace and the best lunch in the barrio.

AR$ 30,000–55,000 · $$
Bib Gourmand

Bis Bistró

Vicente López 1661, Recoleta · lunch and dinner

A small French-leaning bistro in a Recoleta arcade, with a short menu and fair prices in an expensive barrio.

AR$ 30,000–55,000 · $$
Bib Gourmand

Ácido

Palermo · dinner

Sharp, vegetable-forward plates and ferments, with a wine list to match. New to the list in 2025.

AR$ 30,000–55,000 · $$
Bib Gourmand

Ajo Negro, Mar de Tapas

Palermo · dinner

Spanish-style seafood tapas, from the raw bar to the fried, with sherry and Argentine whites. New to the list in 2025.

AR$ 30,000–55,000 · $$
Bib Gourmand

MN Santa Inés

Chacarita · breakfast to lunch

Jessica Lekerman's bakery-café: laminated pastries, breads and brunch plates that pull the city across town on a weekend morning. New to the list in 2025.

AR$ 15,000–30,000 · $

Where locals eat

Parrilla

La Brigada and Desnivel

Estados Unidos; Defensa, San Telmo · lunch and dinner

La Brigada for the steak cut with a spoon under football memorabilia; Desnivel across the way for the cheap, smoky, no-frills version with a queue on Sundays.

AR$ 25,000–60,000 · $$
Pizza

Güerrín, El Cuartito and Las Cuartetas

Avenida Corrientes and Talcahuano · lunch to late

The three great pizzerias of the theatre district: fugazzeta with onions and a kilo of cheese, a slice of fainá on top, a glass of moscato, standing at the counter since the 1930s.

AR$ 8,000–20,000 · $
Empanadas

El Sanjuanino and La Cocina

Posadas, Recoleta; Pueyrredón · lunch and dinner

Empanadas from the north-west provinces, baked and fried, with locro and humita in winter. El Sanjuanino's cellar tables are a Recoleta institution.

AR$ 5,000–15,000 · $
Choripán

The Costanera carts and Chori

Costanera Sur; Thames, Palermo · afternoons and nights

The carritos along the river by the reserve are the original choripán; Chori in Palermo is the modern version with house sausages and six chimichurris.

AR$ 5,000–12,000 · $
Notable cafés

Café Tortoni, Las Violetas and London City

Avenida de Mayo; Rivadavia; Avenida de Mayo · all day

The bares notables: Tortoni for the 1858 room and the queue, Las Violetas for the stained glass and the merienda trays, London City where Cortázar wrote. Coffee, medialunas, time.

AR$ 8,000–20,000 · $
Ice cream

Rapanui, Cadore and Scannapieco

Across the city · afternoons and late nights

Heladerías open past midnight: dulce de leche granizado, sambayón, pistachio. A quarter kilo is a single serving here.

AR$ 6,000–12,000 · $
Nightlife

Milongas, the world's best bars, and clubs at three

Nobody in Buenos Aires eats before nine or goes out before midnight; the clubs open at two and empty at seven. In between are the milongas where the tango is still danced for real, and a cocktail scene that put three bars in the world's top fifty in 2025.

World's 50 Best Bars

Tres Monos, Florería Atlántico and CoChinChina

Palermo; Retiro; Palermo · evenings to 3am

Tres Monos, a loud Palermo bar with a short, clever list, was named the best bar in South America in 2025 and sits tenth in the world; its team also runs La Uat, a hidden dance floor behind a rotisserie. Florería Atlántico is the basement beneath a Retiro flower shop that started the city's cocktail boom, with a menu built on immigrant drinks. CoChinChina mixes Vietnamese and French colonial flavours on Armenia street. Book or queue.

Tango

The milongas

La Viruta, Salón Canning, La Catedral, Maldita Milonga · nightly, from 11pm

A milonga is a social dance, not a show: locals in their seventies and twenty-somethings dancing tango to the same rules on the same floor. La Viruta in Palermo has beginners' classes before the dancing every night; Salón Canning has the best wooden floor in the city and the Parakultural nights; La Catedral in Almagro is a candlelit warehouse where the dress code is whatever you have on; Maldita Milonga in San Telmo dances to a live orchestra on Wednesdays. Take the class, then sit and watch until you understand the nod.

Palermo

Palermo Soho and Hollywood

Around Plaza Serrano and Honduras · 10pm to 4am

The bar district: rooftop terraces, speakeasies behind unmarked doors, craft-beer halls and the restaurants that turn into bars after midnight. Plaza Serrano for the young crowd, the Hollywood side for the quieter cocktail rooms, and a taxi between them.

Clubs

Niceto Club, Crobar and the Costanera boliches

Palermo; Costanera Norte · 2am to 7am, Thursday to Saturday

Niceto for live bands and the Club 69 cabaret nights; Crobar in the Palermo woods for international DJs; the big boliches along the Costanera Norte for the Saturday night that ends at breakfast. Thursdays are the local night; Fridays and Saturdays are everyone's.

Take radio taxis or an app after dark rather than hailing on the street, keep phones out of sight on the pavement, and do not carry more cash than the night needs. Palermo, Recoleta and San Telmo's main streets are fine on foot; La Boca is not after sunset.
Wine

Malbec, and everything Argentina makes beyond it

The vineyards are a thousand kilometres west in Mendoza, but Buenos Aires is where the country drinks: wine bars with hundreds of labels by the glass, parrillas with cellars to match the beef, and sommeliers who will steer you past the obvious.

A hand holding a bottle of Mendoza red wine

What to drink here

Malbec from Mendoza's Uco Valley, grown high and cool at Gualtallary and Altamira, is the wine to have with the steak: Catena Zapata, Zuccardi, Achaval Ferrer, Matías Riccitelli and the smaller names the sommelier will suggest. Cabernet Franc is the grape the winemakers are excited about now; Bonarda the cheap red that over-delivers. For whites, Torrontés from Salta, floral and dry, as the aperitif, and the new Chardonnays and Semillons from the Uco Valley and Patagonia with the fish.

Prices here are a fraction of the same bottles abroad; a good Malbec by the glass costs less than a beer in London. Argentine sparkling, made by the Champagne method in Mendoza, is poured everywhere and is excellent. Fernet and Coke is the national cocktail, and not optional at a football match.

The lists

Aldo's, Lo de Joaquín Alberdi and Pain et Vin

Microcentro and Palermo; Palermo; Palermo Soho · evenings

Aldo's Vinoteca pours from 600 labels at shop prices with a bistro menu; Lo de Joaquín Alberdi is a Palermo wine shop with single-vineyard Malbecs by the glass at the counter; Pain et Vin pairs small producers with its own sourdough. The three places to learn Argentine wine in a week.

AR$ 8,000–20,000 a glass · $$
By the glass

878, Trova and Anchoita Cava

Villa Crespo; Palermo Hollywood; Chacarita · evenings

878 is the bar behind an unmarked door that pours a changing list of interesting wines beside its cocktails; Trova focuses on wines by the glass; Anchoita Cava is the wine bar of one of the city's best restaurants, with ham, cheese and the deep cellar.

AR$ 6,000–18,000 a glass · $$
With the steak

The parrilla cellars

Don Julio, El Preferido, La Brigada

Don Julio's 20,000-bottle cellar is the deepest in the city and the sommeliers will open old vintages by the glass; El Preferido and La Brigada have long Argentine lists at kinder prices. Ask for a Cabernet Franc with the entraña.

AR$ 25,000–120,000 a bottle · $$$
Practical notes

Before you go

Getting there

Ezeiza (EZE) is 35 kilometres south-west and 45 to 90 minutes from the centre by the Tienda León bus, taxi or app; Aeroparque (AEP), on the river ten minutes from Palermo, takes most domestic and regional flights. Ferries to Colonia and Montevideo leave from Puerto Madero.

Getting around

The Subte's six lines and the buses take the SUBE card, sold at kiosks; a ride costs a few hundred pesos. Taxis are cheap by Western standards and plentiful; use the radio taxi or an app at night. The city is flat and the Ecobici bikes are free for short rides. Walk the barrios; distances between them need a cab.

Seasons

  • Oct–Nov: spring, jacarandas in flower, 20–25°C; the best months.
  • Dec–Feb: hot and humid, 30°C and more; the city empties to the coast in January, Colón and many restaurants close.
  • Mar–May: warm, settled autumn; the second-best time.
  • Jun–Aug: mild winter, 10–15°C, grey days, full opera season and no crowds.

Money

Argentine pesos, with inflation that changes every price on this page within months; treat the bands as ratios, not quotes. Pay by foreign card where you can, at the official rate; Western Union transfers and cash dollars still get a better rate in some shops. Carry small notes for buses, kiosks and tips of ten per cent.

Safety

Pickpocketing and phone snatching are the common crimes; keep phones in a front pocket in the centre and on the Subte, and leave the camera round your neck at home in La Boca and Retiro station. The tourist barrios are safe to walk by day and most of the night with the usual city sense.

Where to stay

Palermo for restaurants, bars and parks; Recoleta for the grand hotels and the cemetery; San Telmo for the cobbles and the Sunday fair; Puerto Madero for the river and the quiet. The Microcentro is convenient by day and empty at night.

Photography

Photo credits

Photographs on this page are by independent photographers published on Pexels under the free Pexels licence. Click a title to open the original.

Powered by Webloyt | Report abuse