Will spend a week there at the end of the month. What restaurants / wine bars / coffee shops are not to be missed? Any general tourist tips? Thanks a bunch, in advance!
Spent a week in Buenos Aires in mid January. I really enjoyed the restaurant scene there.
Fervor, in Recoleta
Had lunch here. Huge portion of grilled sweetbreads for an appetizer. The simply grilled Brochette de langostinos (prawns) were outrageously sweet, and paired with three different sauces on the side. Our waiter started out a little on the surly side but warmed up to us when I ordered the sweetbreads.
Oviedo, in Barrio Norte
Delicious Chipirones a la plancha (baby squid), and wild boar with mushrooms and eggs. The Patagonian lamb dish looked amazing as it went by. The locally-inspired dishes looked more interesting than the Spain-inflected ones.
Olsen, in Palermo
If you’re familiar with Aquavit in New York, I would describe Olsen as a more glamorously beautiful but less tasty version of Aquavit. Enjoy the smoked fish and herring, skip the meats.
Tegui, in Palermo
We arrived at Olsen early for our reservation, so we walked over to Tegui to check out the menu. After one look, we asked the sous chef who came to the door if he could find a table for us. No luck this time around, but it looks very promising. Tegui and Olsen are part of the same restaurant group as Casa Cruz and others.
Astrid & Gaston, in Palermo
Gaston Arcurio might not be in this restaurant outpost’s kitchen very often, but his sous chef certainly did not let him down. Great tasting menu, the staff was very accommodating to allow us to swap the meat courses for more of his famous seafood and risotto courses. Best fine dining experience of the trip.
Thx, Daryl. Sounds great!
I just got back from Argentina last week. We didn’t go to any of the high end restaurants in BsAs, though we did in Mendoza. We went with locals to neighborhood restaurants that were all consistently high quality. Pasta was fresh and hand made and the grilled meats were excellent. Wines were inexpensive. One of my favorite meals in BsAs was an incredible choripan from a street vendor that cost 10 pesos. And the Argentine style of ice cream is excellent.
Sunday. Visit the San Telmo antiques market. Great deals on cool stuff!
Buenos Aires is a cool city, have fun. I loved the Palermo neighborhood.
We also ate at Olsen and enjoyed it but agreed that it was more style than substance in terms of food. We found that to be the case at some of the restaurants, especially in Palermo.
You will probably want to try the steak there. La Cabrera is widely recommended and pretty good, with HUGE portions. My sweetbread appetizer (one of the best sweetbread preps I’ve had anywhere) was the size of a steak in San Francisco. We had steak and eggs from our apartment for the next 3 mornings. However, I preferred the steak at Don Julio, also in Palermo. The merguez sausages were also great there.
For a cheaper peek into modern food than you’ll find in Spain, you can try la vineria da gualterio bolivar. We had a fun meal here that just seemed to miss the mark a little too often (for these kinds of meals you expect some misses, but not too many). Regardless I’d recommend it if you are interested in that kind of food.
San Telmo market is great, definitely visit and stick around for the tango that happens in the square later in the afternoon (sorry can’t recall the exact time!).
In general we found the food in BA to be solid, and great value, but never spectacular or especially exciting. The wine was good and very cheap - we drank a ton of torrontes from Salta (Colome is one good producer).
Brian, which high end restaurants did you eat at in Mendoza?
I was there last month and had one of my best meals at Bodega Vistalba, and at harvest time! Tried getting in for lunch at Ruca Malen, another winery with a small restaurant, but they were booked days ahead. It looks like the restaurant scene at many of the top wineries is hopping.
The restaurant that seemed to be getting most of the buzz was Florentino. We liked it, but our favorite was Siete Cocinas.
We had a fabulous winery lunch at Piatelli. The presentation was creative and the food as excellent. We took pictures of every course. That is the only time I’ve ever done that. The food was well ahead of the wine but the location overlooking the Catena Zapata pyramid was gorgeous.
You must have been there just a week or two ahead of us.
Thanks, Brian. I plan on returning to Mendoza and BsAs next month and will check out your recommendations, especially Piatelli, as I have yet to see the pyramid.
As for Bs As, I agree that you are not going to find two or three star Michelin meals, but the experience of sitting down to a nice steak with an excellent bottle of Malbec when the weather is nice, and in a place like Puerto Madero, is priceless!
That is a nice spot at Puerto Madero. We didn’t eat there, but we looked at some menus as we walked by and it was difficult not to stop. OTOH, I highly recommend walking across the bridge and several more blocks to the ecological preserve. It gets crowded with food trucks that fire up their parillas and serve some incredible grilled meats for super cheap prices. And the preserve is a nice place to walk out to the river.
I heard about the ecological park, which I understand is relatively new, and will make it a stop next month.
When I was in Bs As last month I was on a mission to seek out some wine bars, and was surprised at the meager choices. I did find, however, a very popular wine bar, Gran Bar Danzon, in the Recoleta area, which not only had good wine-friendly dishes, but an excellent selection of wines by the glass, some which are very limited and unobtainable in the US market.
Thanks for all the help. I really enjoyed my week in Buenos Aires - too much perhaps, judging by the scales this morning. My discovery that I want to share with everyone was a small French restaurant in Recoleta - La Olla de Felix, where we ate three times and was delicious every single time. Limited menu of 7-8 items which changed daily, small cozy feel. A lot of regulars (felt like Felix was friends with half the people every night). If there is one knock on the place it is the limited wine selection, but we found one wine that we liked there on the first night and we stuck with it - Kaufman Malbec Reserva from the San Juan region, which was very pinot-like and went well with all the food.
Another tip - the Dulce de Leche with chocolate chips at Freddo (coffee shop chain all over town) was insanely good.
Thanks for all the great info in this thread!
I’m heading to Argentina next month (somewhat unexpectedly) and am trying to decide how to split my time between Buenos Aires and Mendoza. I will have 6-7 days and will be starting in BA. Any recs? Also, what’s the best way to get from BA to Mendoza? I assume it’s to fly. If so, any recs on airlines?
Are car services easy to find in Mendoza? Terribly expensive? Best wineries to visit? Restaurants?
Any other advice is appreciated!
Greg, feel free to hit me up via PM or email as needed. I’m going through this right now as well. I’ve culled through the half dozen or more threads here, the same on Wine Spectator, 3 or 4 on CellarTracker, etc… I’ve come up with quite a bit all in the last 48 hours.
6-7 days is a little tight to squeeze in Mendoza from BA but it can be done depending on how much time you must spend in each location. I’m flying into BA (EZE) and spending 2 nights there before catching a flight to Mendoza (AEP) where I’ll spend 3 nights before returning to BA for 1 night. Pretty hectic schedule overall to fit it all in.
You pretty much must fly between BA and Mendoza with such a short timeframe. Otherwise you’re staring at a minimum of 10 hours driving each way versus just under 2 hours flying each way.
You’re likely flying into EZE which is 35km south of BA. Almost all domestic flights are out of AEP about 10 minutes north of BA. So you need to look at AEP for flying to Mendoza. This is the reason why I’m doing the split schedule. FYI…flights between BA and MDZ are expensive. I’m currently looking for cheaper alternatives.
Car services are pretty easy to arrange through your hotel in Mendoza. Cost is roughly $130-150 USD per day for a full day with a private car and English speaking driver. Tours are less if you desire. Hot Wheels (small) car rentals can be had for $100 USD per day but I’m pretty much going to guarantee you that you’ll get lost close to half the time. No signs or poorly marked directions in the area. GPS is not even reliable.
I just booked hotels in BA and MDZ. I’ll be working on wineries and restaurants soon but I already have some suggestions from all of the threads on various sites.
Joe - thanks so much for the information. Sounds like your trip is nearly identical to what I’m planning. Good to know about the differences in BA airports…I hadn’t figured that out yet. I was seeing prices for $700+ for flights to Mendoza from EZE!
I’ll be in touch via PM later this week when my timelines firm up. Thanks again!
Greg
I booked our fall 2012 tickets on LAN using my British Airways miles. If you have American Airlines, you can book with LAN since LAN is part of the One World Alliance. Even cashing in my miles, I still had to pay the high taxes for the tickets.
If you have Starwood points, you can transfer them to LAN. As Joe said, the domestic airport code is AEP for departures to Mendoza.
Joe, you have mail.