Buenos Aires - Argentina - page 91

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Porteños eat breakfast until 10am, lunch betw een noon and 4pm, and dinner late—
usually after 9pm, though some restaurants open as early as 7pm. If you are an early-bird
diner in the N orth American and B ritish style, wanting to eat fr om 5pm on, look for
restaurants in our listings that r emain open between lunch and dinner. If you can make
a reservation, I highly recommend doing so. If you do not want to commit, get to places
close to their usual 8pm opening time, when y ou will almost always arriv e to a nearly
empty r estaurant. However, once the clock hits 9pm, vir tually ev ery table at the best
restaurants will suddenly be full.
Many r estaurants ser ve ex ecutive lunch menus (usually fix ed-price, thr ee-course
meals) at noon, but most dinner menus are a la carte. There is sometimes a small “cover”
charge for bread and other items placed at the table. I n restaurants that serve pasta, the
pasta and sauce ar e sometimes priced separately . S tandard tipping is 10% in B uenos
Aires, mor e for ex ceptional ser vice. When paying b y cr edit car d, y ou will often be
expected to leave the propina (tip) in cash, since many cr edit card receipts don't provide
a place to include the tip. Be aware that some new restaurants are not yet accepting credit
cards, due to fears still r esonating from the peso collapse. S ome restaurants might also
have signs indicating they accept credit cards, only to mysteriously have broken machines
when you ask to pay this way . Many restaurants close betw een lunch and dinner , and
some close completely on Sunday or Monday, or only offer dinner. In January and Febru-
ary, many restaurants offer very limited hours or close for vacations, because most Porte-
ños flee to the beach this time of year. It's best to call ahead during these months, to make
sure a restaurant is open so as to av oid disappointment.
Though Buenos Aires is a v ery cosmopolitan city, it is not v ery ethnically diverse, at
least on the sur face. However, a fe w areas reflect the influences of M iddle Eastern and
Jewish immigrants who came to this city in the wake of World War I and the O ttoman
Empire's collapse. M iddle Eastern r estaurants ar e cluster ed in P alermo Viejo near the
subte station Scalabrini O rtiz, and also on Calle Armenia. I list sev eral of them belo w.
Because O nce and A basto w ere the traditional neighborhoods for J ewish immigrants,
you'll find many kosher r estaurants (some traditional, others r ecently opened by young
people trying to bring back the cuisine they remember their grandparents cooking) along
Calle Tucumán in particular. Because many Buenos Aires Jews are Sephardic or of Middle
Eastern descent, you'll also find Arabic influences her e along with Ashkenazi, or eastern
European Jewish, touches.
With as many local Italian last names as Spanish ones, it's hard to distinguish those of
Italian descent as a specific ethnic gr oup within Argentina, as y ou can in the U nited
States, Canada, or A ustralia. As such, B uenos Aires's Italian food is Argentine food in
essence, and pastas and other I talian dishes are usually folded in with traditional Argen-
tine offerings such as grilled beef. La Boca is Buenos Aires's historic Little Italy, the place
where Italian immigrants first settled at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries.The
atmosphere in these r estaurants plays on this past and caters to tourists, but this is not
where the city's best Italian food is served. Instead, it is usually found in old, simple par-
rillas that have operated for decades and include pastas on their menus. Throughout this
chapter, most of these ar e in the I nexpensive categories all o ver the city . Additionally,
though it is on the pricey side, check out Piegari in Recoleta's La Recova restaurant area,
which has some of the best nor thern Italian cuisine in the city.
Asians only make up a tiny por tion of Buenos Aires's population, with little effect on
local cuisine. Still, in keeping with international tr ends, sushi bars and other r estaurants
with Japanese and Chinese influences hav e cropped up. All o ver the city, you will find

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