Buenos Aires bares notables, the cafés the city protects by law

A municipal register shields certain cafés and bars from renovation and demolition, on the grounds of age, architecture or the writers and musicians who used them. Protection covers the fittings, so the marble, the wood panelling and the original signage stay put, and repairs draw public funds. Several remain neighbourhood bars with almuerzo boards rather than tourist stops.

Places in this collection

  • Café de los Angelitos — Listed by the city as a bar notable and named alongside Las Violetas and La Biela in the national tourism board's guide to the protected ca…
  • San Bernardo — Founded in 1912 and run as much as a games club as a bar: metegol, pool, billiards and ping pong, plus chess, dominoes and burako for anyon…
  • La Puerto Rico — Trading since 1887, which puts it among the oldest survivors on the city's protected list, on Adolfo Alsina a short walk from the Plaza de…
  • La Embajada — The city tourism board lists it among the protected historic establishments as a traditional store in historic Monserrat, which is a rarer…
  • London City — The ground floor was built by Edwin Merry for the Ortíz Basualdo family in the late 1800s and sold around 1910 to Gath & Chávez, who ran a…
  • La Biela — The corner was the Vasco Michelena grocery store until 1942, and the motor-racing crowd that followed gave the café its name and its regula…
  • 36 Billares — The name is the point: billiards, pool and snooker tables occupy the basement below the café on Avenida de Mayo. It closed in 2013 and was…
  • Las Violetas — Built in 1884 with stained glass, boiserie, Italian marble and furniture shipped from Paris, and known for the cortado and medialuna rather…
  • El Banderín — Siphons of sparkling seltzer arrive at the table without being ordered and without being charged for, alongside the beer and snacks. On mat…
  • Café Margot — The sign outside is fileteado, the botanical drawing-and-lettering style brought by European immigrants and now an Argentine emblem, and it…
  • Bar de Cao — A San Cristóbal fixture for more than a hundred years, from the era when the Cao brothers lived on the floor above and held their family ce…
  • El Viejo Buzón — A bakery for the best part of a century before it became a bar and restaurant in 1987, in Caballito rather than on any tourist circuit. The…
  • Los Galgos — A downtown fixture since the early 20th century that shut after 90 years and was reopened in 2015 by Julián Díaz and Florencia Capella, the…
  • La Poesía — Opened in 1982 by the poet and journalist Rubén Derlis as a meeting place for left-leaning intellectuals and artists, and used during the d…
  • Café Tortoni — Opened in 1858 and modelled on a Paris café, with a stained-glass ceiling attributed to Tiffany and walls of portraits and plaques marking…

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