In Buenos Aires, cafés aren’t just about coffee.
Most intersections have at least one corner café-bar and each just has that look. You know the quintessential Buenos Aires street scene?
A corner building with tables on the sidewalk to savour the morning caffeine hit with the daily papers under the shade of a leafy tree. A couple dancing the tango beneath lamplight as onlookers sip Malbec into the small hours.
Well, it isn’t a figment of a painters minds-eye. These places actually exist.
And what better place to check out the tradition than in Buenos Aires’ oldest neighbourhood, San Telmo?
Bares notables – Buenos Aires historic cafés
Buenos Aires has over 70 historic cafés, declared bares notables. They represent cultural significance, interior design of a by-gone age wonderfully preserved and a taste of authentic porteño life.
In most cases, these cafés are full blown restaurants too. They serve food, wine and coffee, often have improvised tango dancing and singing and open for up to 20 hours a day.
Bares notables are spread all across the city and San Telmo has its fair share. It may sound like a cliché, but walking through the doors of one of these feels like stepping back in time.
Our favourite San Telmo cafés
We’ve been living in San Telmo for a little while now as we take a break from life on the road in the camper van. Already we’ve tried and tested many, many cafés in the neighbourhood.
Here are the San Telmo cafe’s we love most. Of our favourites, 4 of them are bares notables and a couple not, but worthy of a mention anyway.
Clad from wall to ceiling in original fittings, La Poesía was the first café we visited during our time in Buenos Aires.
The green & cream floor tiles butt up to the dark wooden bar. The ceiling-high shelves house books, jars of pickles and bottles of big Argentinian reds.
The walls of the mezzanine floor concealed with black & white portraits of some of Buenos Aires’ most notable literary figures.
Originally founded in the early 1980’s, La Poesía became a hang out for San Telmo’s artists, academics and philosophers.
Argentina’s dirty war ended in the early ‘80s and La Poesía served as a setting to thrash out opinions.
It shut up shop a few years later, the building serving as premises for multiple failed enterprises. But La Poesía has been given a new lease of life & café culture runs around the clock here.
This became a regular haunt for us. We’d spend the first hour of the morning sipping un café solo while checking emails, before perusing the daily newspaper.
The outdoor tables along the sidewalk are a perfect spot for soaking up Porteño life with a cold beer or glass of wine in the twilight.
Hot tip | Bring cash - Café La Poesía don’t accept card payments
Address | Chile 502 on the intersection with Bolivar
Opening times | Sunday to Thursday - 8am to 2am | Friday & Saturday - 8am to 4am
Sitting on one of San Telmo’s prettiest corners in a mansion over 100 years old, Café Rivas exudes 1920’s Buenos Aires.
Set in elegant, art deco surroundings with a laid-back atmosphere and downtown BA ambience, this is our favourite café for breakfast.
With a simple menu of medialunas, yoghurt & fresh fruit or the full monte, it’s a great place to kick start the day.
If you need to take the weight off your feet after browsing San Telmo’s Sunday market, try afternoon tea. The cakes look heavenly!
Better still, wait until evening for incredible aperitifs while listening to the live jazz music played on the balcony.
Hot tip | Try the bacon and egg breakfast - the best we had in Buenos Aires!
Address | Estados Unidos 302 on the intersection with Balcarce
Opening times | Tuesday to Thursday - 9:30am to 1am | Friday & Saturday 9am to 1:30am | Sunday - 11am to 8 pm
One of San Telmo’s most well known bares notables and founded in 1864, El Federal feels like a place where time stood still.
The dark wooden furnishings contrast against the shiny green porcelain tiles. A stained glass arch runs over the length of the bar, a clock the keystone centrepiece.
The building was once a gaucho bar, a brothel and even a general store so there’s no shortage of history in this wooden cladding.
For a leisurely afternoon, order a picada lunch to share - a wooden platter of cheese and meats - and a glass of wine.
Just remember | you are not surrounded by giants and you haven’t shrunk! You’ll know what we mean when you walk in.
Address | Carlos Calvo 599 on the intersection with Perú
Opening times | Sunday to Thursday - 8am to 2 am | Fridays and Saturdays - 8am to 4am
Old advertising signs for cigarettes, camparis and sewing machines adorn the walls. Braids of garlic and cured meats hang from the ceiling. Weighing scales and meat slicers taking more than their share of counter space wouldn’t look out of place in San Telmo’s antique stores.
Perhaps more than any other of San Telmo’s cafés we’ve visited, El Hipopotamo feels like a living history museum.
A café has stood here since 1909 and on a corner position with a great view of Parque Lezama.
Less busy than the cafés on Plaza Dorrego, grabbing a window seat or even an outdoor table isn’t so difficult.
It’s a perfect spot for people watching from behind the fileteado decorated windows with good quality coffee.
And if you want to see the candombe troupes on a Sunday evening, they start their parades near here too.
Hot tips | Don’t miss their apple pancakes!
Address | Avenida Brasil 401 on the intersection with Defensa
Opening times | Monday to Thursday - 7:30am to 2am | Fridays and Saturdays - 7:30am to 3am | Sundays - 8am to 2am
Coffee Town is the only coffee shop chain on our list. Situated smack in the middle of the San Telmo market, the surroundings are wonderful.
Mercado de San Telmo dates back to 1897. High glass ceilings propped up by metal girders, and paving stones so worn they shine.
The café is a great spot to soak up the atmosphere of the market place.
Tipped as the best coffee in town we had to at least give it a try once.
Coffee Town say they have tasters who test the coffee beans before and after roasting to guarantee quality. That’s as maybe, but we found it fell a little flat.
We’ve actually had better coffee in the middle of the Sahara Desert - although we did have the advantage of travelling with a professional coffee taster at the time!
The service was good but breakfast was average and overpriced.
In our opinion, this is a great spot to savour the architecture of the market, but otherwise, give it a miss.
Hot tip | For a more relaxed cuppa, visit during the week.
Address | Bolivar 940 inside the Mercado San Telmo
Opening times | Monday to Sunday - 8am to 9pm
This is a little further out of the centre of San Telmo. The owner of our Airbnb tipped us off to it, claiming they offer the best coffee in the neighbourhood.
Unlike Coffee Town in the market, this place didn’t disappoint on that front. Although the accompanying water was from the tap (so with a complimentary hint of swimming pool), the coffee was definitely the best we had in San Telmo, hands down. And at ARG $ 75 for a café solo doble it was the cheapest too.
Caburé is first and foremost a bookstore so the walls are lined from floor to ceiling with literary works. There’s s definite slant to the left with revolutionary works proudly displayed.
If you want great coffee in San Telmo, come here. If you’re looking for something with a little ambience, perhaps choose somewhere else.
Hot tip | Caburé has a diary of (usually) free talks, so if your Spanish is up to it, check out their schedule.
Address | Mexico 620
Opening times | Monday to Saturday - 9am to 9pm | Closed on Sundays
Make sure to check out our definitive guide to getting around Buenos Aires before you go.
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