Avenida Corrientes 1669 (near corner of Rodriguez Pena), City Center

This black cat in Buenos Aires might not be so unlucky…

On a chilly fall or winter day in Buenos Aires, there is nothing more likely to give you warmth and a big smile than having a delicious spiced tea or coffee in El Gato Negro, one of the city’s most historical establishments. The cafe was originally a spice store founded by a Spanish settler in 1929. His name was Victoriano Lopez Robredo, and he had spent years traveling in Asia and Siberia, collecting exotic spices and flavors. He brought them to Buenos Aires and named this cafe El Gato Negro after another famous cafe back in Madrid.

Now El Gato Negro is a reminder of the city’s European roots, and a wonderful place to read a newspaper or the book you recently bought at one of Avenida Corrientes’ many bookstores, or even to enjoy a gourmet dinner in its elegant upstairs dining room.

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Honduras 4999 (in Plaza Serrano), Palermo Soho

[Photo Credit: julianrod]

After a lazy Sunday afternoon spent “domingeando” (as the porteños say) - or in other words, relaxing and walking around the artisan fairs and examining the hand-made crafts and clothing items - head to Malasartes in Plaza Serrano (Palermo Soho) for a warm, welcoming café atmosphere any time of day or evening.

At weekends this focal point of Palermo Soho fills with artisans selling hand-made crafts and sweaters, which are definitely worth an hour of browsing while you are in this area of Buenos Aires.

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An Introduction to Dancing Tango in Buenos Aires

[Photo Credit: SMeaLLuM]

Note from Alan - We are lucky enough to welcome a seasoned Buenos Aires tango and milonga expert to the Buenos Aires Argentina Guide, in the form of Cherie Magnus, from the Tango Cherie blog (see the end of this post for more info on Cherie). Her first offering is an excellent guide to the types of tango salon in Buenos Aires, for those interested in the real world of social tango dancing in the city. So, over to you Cherie…

If you want to dance tango in Buenos Aires, where do you go?

Actually it depends on many things: your age, what style you dance, what day or night of the week you want to go out, if you go with or without a partner, and so on…

Dancing social tango in Buenos Aires has nothing to do with the Tango Show Dancing on the streets of San Telmo, La Boca, calle Florida, or Recoleta, or the many Tango Cena-Shows with an orchestra, stage dancers and dinner. The first thing to know about tango is that what you’ll see in those places is a different dance - Tango for Export. And that is another post entirely!

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Serrano 1595 (corner with Honduras - Plaza Serrano), Palermo Soho

If you consider yourself a hipster, an intellectual, an artist, or just too cool for categorization, come join the club at El Taller. This multiespacio - a word used in Buenos Aires to describe a multi-functional space - in this case with a bar, café, art space, and discussion salon, was one of the first businesses to appear in Plaza Serrano in the mid-1980s.

El Taller has made beautiful use of the building by carefully placing framed artwork all over the walls. You could spend an hour just gazing at the art, taking in each piece separately and letting yourself be inspired or intrigued by the various Argentine artists. The bar is open from 9am to 2am Mondays through Thursdays; and until 3am on Fridays, Saturdays, and holidays [and in case you didn't know, in Argentina there's a holiday every, oh, two weeks :)].

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Thames 1762 (between Costa Rica & El Salvador), Palermo Soho

[Hours of operation: Monday to Thursday - 12am to 10pm; Friday - 10am to 11pm; Saturday - 11am to 11pm; Sundays and holidays - 2pm to 10pm]

Buenos Aires, a city of book lovers

As one of the most literate cities on the planet, Buenos Aires will not disappoint a book lover. You can spend hours just browsing through the stacks and shelves of novels, academic theses, art and photography collections, and poetry anthologies in shops across the city here. Of course Buenos Aires is best for book-shopping if you read Spanish, or don’t mind captions in Spanish, but most places do also have an English-language selection.

One very attractive and alluring bookstore in Buenos Aires is the Boutique del Libro, a combined bookshop and café tucked away in the atmospheric streets of Palermo Soho.

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