Buenos Aires is the home of Tango, since the dance and music came bubbling up from the poor southern barrios in the 1870s to be what was at first only the music of the lower classes in Buenos Aires, but very soon after a global phenomenon that is still going stronger than ever today. Without a doubt, Buenos Aires is the best city in the world to experience Tango, in it’s birthplace, whether you want to listen to it, watch it being danced, or dance it yourself.

Below you will find a list of some of the main Tango hotspots in Buenos Aires, by type (tango shops, clubs, milongas, orchestras, dinner shows, open air performances etc).

Places to Dance Tango in Buenos Aires

Please check our article on the Types of Tango Salon in Buenos Aires - a good overview for those looking to get into the real social tango dancing scene in Buenos Aires.

• Chiqué Tango Milonga (Casa Galicia, San Jose 224), Congreso, City Center - a warm, welcoming milonga held every Thursday afternoon
• La Milonga de los Consagrados (Centro Region Leonesa, Humberto Primo 1462), San Telmo - a good, busy Saturday afternoon milonga held in a great Tango salon
• Cochabamba 444 (between Defensa & Bolivar), San Telmo - a nice little tango practica in San Telmo, to go to learn, dance, watch or listen to Argentine tango

Open Air Tango in Buenos Aires

• Plaza Dorrego (corner of Defensa & Humberto Primo), San Telmo - open air Tango music and dancing on Sundays between 10am and 6pm, in and around the Plaza Dorrego market
• Caminito (corner of Don Pedro de Mendoza & Del Valle Iberlucea), La Boca - a small but colorful pedestrian street with open air Tango performers in the area of Buenos Aires where the music was supposedly born

Tango History Sightseeing

• El Mercado de Abasto (Corrientes 3247, between Aguero & Anchorena), Abasto, City Center - the area where the most famous of all Tango singers, Carlos Gardel, once lived. Now also home to a large shopping center including a cinema & many things to see and do

Keep checking back for more information on Buenos Aires Tango hotspots and events, which will include the best places to see, hear and try Tango in the city where it was created.

Plaza Dorrego (Corner of Defensa and Humberto Primo), San Telmo

Buenos Aires ‘Must Do’

Spending a Sunday in and around Plaza Dorrego is one of the few things that ranks as a ‘must do’ sightseeing attraction for visitors to Buenos Aires. On the seventh day of the week, when the rest of the city is resting, the city closes much of neighboring Defensa street to traffic, and this part of San Telmo explodes into a mass of around 8,000 people, locals and tourists alike. They come to peruse antiques and knickknacks, watch the outdoor tango dancing and other performers, sit for a coffee or beer outside a classic old cafe, or just aimlessly wander around the interesting chaos. This, more or less, is the Plaza Dorrego Sunday market, also known as the “Feria de San Pedro Telmo”.

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Reconquista 920 (between Paraguay & Marcelo T de Alvear), Buenos Aires City Center

(Also has a Recoleta location, at Ayacucho 1204)

Pool Near The River

Deep Blue is a fairly expensive pool bar in the ‘bajo’ (’low’) area of Buenos Aires City Center, which basically means the part where the land starts to slope down towards the river. It is an area with a high concentration of bars, and due to this also being the banking/business district, you will generally see a lot of the ‘after office’ crowd about. In any other major city this would probably be a sign of a drunken mess waiting to happen, but in Argentina they are generally not very big drinkers, which is one of the more accurate stereotypes you will hear about the city. Although of course, things can get a bit crazy on Friday and Saturday nights, when these bars become rammed with twenty-something portenos.

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