Italy, France, India and Thailand are world famous for their cuisines, but Argentina is world famous for its buttery, tender, melt-in-your-mouth steak. And where does one find this food of the gods? Why at the barbecue grill restaurants known as parrillas, of course.
Now, trying to name ‘the 5 best’ parrillas in Buenos Aires is actually a little insane. There are hundreds if not thousands of parrillas in Buenos Aires, and very few of them (by your author’s humble estimations) aren’t at least ‘quite good.’ So: I’m not even going to try. Yes, that’s right; the heading of this article is a total lie!
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Closed-door restaurants, a.k.a. restaurantes a puertas cerradas, are big in Buenos Aires. Never heard of them? What closed-door restaurants do is to blur the line between restaurants and dinner parties. They often occur in what is actually the home of the chef, and so necessarily they’re limited to small number of diners. Menus usually change weekly or even daily according to the whims of the chef. They also almost never offer you a choice of dishes; you just get what the chef is cooking on the night you go, which is actually kind of liberating.
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It’s inevitable that living the expat life means foregoing some of the things you ordinarily like to do. Be that as it may, some things are sacrosanct. Reliable broadband is one, and another…is brunch. Sure, the standard combo of tres medialunas and a cup of strong Argentine coffee will get you buzzing, but when the sugar-and-caffeine high ends abruptly a little later you’ll be left wishing you’d had a healthier option instead. Read on for some of the best places to find just that.
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We all know that Buenos Aires boosts some great restaurants but sometimes it can get a little overwhelming. All the travels guides point you to the same restaurants in Palermo Soho and driving up and down the streets you are overwhelmed by a grand collection of Parrilla’s, Pizza Joints and Empanada stands. Besides some obvious well known delicious restaurants, how are you supposed to tell one place from another?
If you are looking to brush up on your Spanish and see what Porteño’s think of their city’s restaurants, head over to Guía Oleo, where you can read reviews and search different restaurants based on different criteria.
If you are from the USA, think of Guía Oleo as the city’s equivalent to Yelp, but with a focus solely on restaurants. Restaurants are rated by Porteños using Food, Service and Ambiance as criteria.
It is existential to get out of Palermo and hit some of the cities true restaurants, where large quantities of quality food can be eaten on the cheap. Guía Oleo should be able to give you a head start.
For a great article on Bogedones de Buenos Aires, read Stephen Metcalf’s account “Cocina Confidential” from the New York Times.
Whats a Bogedone you ask? From Metcalf’s account:
………It is also, as many parrillas are, a type of bodegón, a simple neighborhood restaurant started by and for immigrants, traditionally of Spanish or Italian descent. Taken together, bodegones form an unofficial institution in Buenos Aires, places where true porteños — as residents of Buenos Aires, a port city, are called — go to enjoy mass quantities of comfort food on the cheap.
If you are interested in some further reading into the Authentic restaurants of Buenos Aires, try “The Authentic Bars, Cafes, and Restaurants of Buenos Aires” by Gabriela Kogan.
