LOCAL FAVOURITES

Fugazzeta

Porteños’ favourite comfort food, and perhaps their most bizarre take on pizza. While normal fugazza has a base that’s buried under a mound of cheese and onion, with fugazzeta, this base is stuffed with mozzarella, while the onions are scattered on top.

Milanesa a la napolitana

There’s a tendency in Buenos Aires to treat pretty much every food like a pizza — that is, to drown it in toppings. Milanesa (breaded veal escalopes) are a prime example. This version is topped with ham, covered in a herby tomato sauce and finished with cheese, melted under the grill.

Pizza din fainá

This is a dish assembled at the table. The diner orders a mozzarella pizza and several fainás (chickpea flatbreads, thought to have been introduced by Genoese immigrants). They then place fainá strips on top of pizza slices and eat together.

Matambre

One of the most interesting dishes, both visually and taste wise, this is flank steak spread with puréed carrots, peas or peppers, rolled around boiled eggs, then steamed and sliced. It’s a twist on beef braciola, a Sicilian roulade usually cooked in wine and served in a tomato sauce.

Pasta frola de dulce de membrillo

This intensely sweet dessert, with a shortbread-like crust, gets its name from an Italian shortbread crust, pasta frola, used to make jam-filled pies. The Argentinian version uses quince paste (dulce de membrillo), or, for even more sweetness, dulce de leche.