EATING OUT!

In Buenos Aires you can enjoy food from different regions and several typical specialties. The city has specific areas where you can choose from a wide range of restaurants.

Costanera Norte and Puerto Madero districts are renowned because of their parrillas (barbecues), and international food. Puerto Madero is a zone where most tourist go to feel at home when asking for food.

Avenida de Mayo surroundings is the place to taste Spanish food. Many restaurants around this area were opened by Spanish immigrants, mainly gallegos and Austrians, that arrived to the country

the first half of the 20^th century.

The most traditional pizzas can be found in Corrientes Avenue, known also as “the street that never sleeps”, because once it was narrower and had many nightclubs, cafés and bars in which you could stay all night long dancing or listening to the new wave in music: tango. Guerrín and Banchero are classic pizzerias, where you will taste a greasy and thick pizza. Try the fugazza at Banchero.

Palermo Hollywood and Soho, Recoleta and Las Cañitas neighborhoods offer gourmet specialties: elaborated, refined and exotic dishes.

Palermo viejo (soho and hollywood) now it’s the place where in-the-know travelers and hip locals alike go for their shopping (specially in Palermo SoHo) and night-life fix. It’s also home to the city’s liveliest dining scene. The area’s trendy status has brought many restaurants, Palermo has more than 600 restaurants, cafes and bars. Some of my favorites are Central, Olsen (where you can eat Norwegian food, in a excellent decorated place, I love its front garden)

In these neighbourhoods there are also a handful of new restaurants that give tribute to argentine tradition. A classic for argentine food is La Cholita in Recoleta, or Las Cholas in Las Cañitas. The food is very good an cheap, but it is always packed up with groups of friends, and the attention is not quite good. There you can eat, parrilladas (I suggest the “matambrito de cerdo”), empanadas, humitas, locro, and in tea time you can ask for mate. In 1810 in Palermo, you can have excelent empanadas tucumanas. And for San Juan empanadas, and traditional food, go to El San Juanino in Recoleta (Posadas entre Ayacucho y Callao)

In Palermo you have Jangada, where locals go for the pacú, a cousin of the piranha that can grow as large as 60 pounds, very succulent. It has also other species from the rivers of the Litoral Area.

Parrillas, are places where you may find the authentic local cooking, they offer all kind of grilled meat cuts, mostly vacune, but you may also eat pork and chicken. You may have, bife de chorizo, lomo, matambrito, morcilla (blood sausage), chorizos (big sausage, mainly eaten with bread – choripan), chinchulines (chitterlings), mollejas (cow glands – exquisite when they cooked to golden brown and with tons of lemmon juice), bondiola de cerdo (pork shoulder)... You eat the meat with salads, or french fries (papas fritas). Puerto Madero, has a lot of parrillas, packed with tourist, like Siga la Vaca, Happening, Cabaña Las Lilas, La Caballeriza. In Palermo viejo, La Cabrera has many juicy stakes you can eat with a lot of different sauces, vegetables... very tasty. For starters ask for a provoleta with olive oil (grilled cheese).

Patagonic food is another trend that is growing in Buenos Aires restaurants. At Divina Patagonia in Palermo, offers a refined introduction to the ingredients of the south: an assortment of sausages, cheeses and cured meats, including smoked deer. Main courses are— Patagonian lamb, deer loin, wild boar braised in beer. In San Telmo, you may eat delicius picadas at Mistica Patagonia, and El Territorio: with deer, smoked salmon or trout, smoked cheese, jabalí meat. For dessert try any dish with frutos del bosque (berrys). For drink, pinot noir wine, or home made beer.

A wave of Italian immigration in the late 1800’s left a lasting impression on Argentina’s culinary landscape: an argentine house always has pastas, in all its ways: spaghettis, lasagna, cannelloni... In Palermo, one of my favorites restaurants is Bella Italia Cafè. A small cozy place.

WHERE TO EAT

La Cabrera Cabrera 5099; 011-54-11-4831-7002;

Divina Patagonia Honduras 5710; 011-54-11-4771-6864;

Jangada Honduras 5799; 54-11-4777-4193

Banchero | Av. Corrientes 1300. Centro. Tel. 43824669 | Cocina: Italiana - Pizza

Bella Italia | República Árabe Siria 3285. Palermo. Tel. 4802-4253 | Cocina: Italiana

Cabaña Las Lilas | Alicia Moreau de Justo 516. Puerto Madero. Tel. 4313-1336 | Cocina: Parrilla

Cumaná | Rodríguez Peña 1149. Puerto Madero. Tel. 4813-9207 | Cocina: Argentina

La Caballeriza | Alicia Moreau de Justo 580. Puerto Madero. Tel. 4514-4444 | Cocina: Parrilla

La Cholita | Rodriguez Peña 1165. Barrio Norte. Tel. 4815-4506 | Cocina: Argentina

Las Cholas | Arce 306. Las Cañitas. Tel. 4899-0094 | Cocina: Parrilla

Olsen | Gorriti 5870. Palermo. Tel. 4776-7677 | Cocina: Nor-europea