PRESERVING ARGENTINA’S GOLDEN AGE
Bar Británico sits on a prime corner of San Telmo, sharing the historic neighborhood with stately mansions lining old, lowslung streets. Just across the road, a monument marks the spot where a Spanish expedition founded the city in 1536. Inside, the ambiance is mellow, the light sepia-tinted, with a checkerboard-patterned floor, well-spaced wooden tables and a dimly lit bar twinkling with bottles of local vermouths and liqueurs. A fan turns slowly so as not to disturb the regulars reading their daily newspapers.
When I lived here, from 1991 to 2001, I would drop in for a ham-andcheese toastie or a bowl of lentil stew in winter, a discreet nod from the waiter and a window seat. Now, on return visits to Buenos Aires, I always begin my stay with a cortado at the Británico. It’s not because I’m English, a “Británico,” but because the place feels like a second home. In a city prone to razing and redevelopment, the beauty of things that don’t change is enhanced by their scarcity.
Bar Británico’s character has granted it status from the city as one of 80-odd “bares notables.” These bars and cafes – the words are interchangeable here – possess a certain antiquated charm. Several opened in the 19th century, making them ancient in a nation that only gained independence in 1816. You can identify them by common decor: zinc bar-tops, tiled floors, soccer or tango memorabilia, and signage that uses a local curlicued typeface called fileteado.
Sports, musical and literary legends sipped their espressos and vermouths at some “notables.” Argentina’s most celebrated author, Jorge Luis Borges, talked books and sketched out stories with fellow writer Adolfo Bioy Casares at La Biela, a Parisian-style terrace cafe in upmarket Recoleta. Bar Sur and El Boliche de Roberto are known for live tango shows, which can be enjoyed over empanadas and malbec. According to custom – at least in the days before bodyguards and bulletproof limos – presidents dropped into the Tortoni, the oldest and grandest of the cafes, every May 25, Revolution Day, for a breakfast of hot chocolate and churros.
I often use the “cafés notables” to plot walks and bus rides. The promise of a coffee and a medialuna (the sweet Argentine version of the croissant) is reason enough to explore beyond well-trodden touristy districts like Palermo and La Boca. Frankly, few outsiders would make the trip to the barrio of Devoto, on the western edge of the city, if it were not for the gorgeous Café de García.
In some countries, being a “listed” or heritage building signifies protection against modernization or closure and even maintenance grants. Not in Buenos Aires. The relevant edicts that apply to these establishments allude to tax breaks and promise “technical advice”; in return proprietors commit to not modifying the exterior, interior, “essence or identity” of their bar or cafe.
“Being ‘notable’ basically means the Ministry of Culture spreads the word about you,” says Carlos Cantini, who has been writing an in-depth Spanish blog about Buenos Aires’s cafe culture for a decade. “But it doesn’t come with any kind of practical support. Dozens of ‘notables’ have closed, been demolished or refurbished. As for obtaining funds or loans, there’s simply no access to credit in Argentina.”
HIGH-PROFILE CLOSINGS
The stately Café Richmond
– where Graham Greene enjoyed a gin or two, and Anglo-Argentine hacks at the Buenos Aires Herald knew they could get a good cup of tea – closed in 2011. La Flor de Barracas, Clásica y Moderna and the martini bar of the Hotel Castelar are more recent high-profile closures. Even the beloved Británico was threatened in 2006, when the building’s owner decided to sell, but locals organized