Travel

Bouncing around Buenos Aires

The InterContinental Nordelta Tigre offers waterfront luxury.

The InterContinental Nordelta Tigre offers waterfront luxury. (
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Rojo Tango keeps the night sexy at Faena.

Rojo Tango keeps the night sexy at Faena. (BFA)

Recoleta

The “blue market” for American money is ridiculously favorable for US tourists. And the best place to see for yourself is in Recoleta’s luxury shopping district. The official exchange rate is about 5 pesos to $1, but you can fairly easily get 7 to 1 or more if you pay with American cash. The shops want your more stable currency so badly that they’ll often just round down to the nearest $100. That’s how we bought two rainbow-hued pairs of tango shoes for just $200 total at Comme il Faut (commeilfaut.com.ar). Around the corner at Franco Polini (francopolini.com.ar), we grabbed two pairs of textured platform heels for $300. Recoleta is also home to one of the city’s most posh hotels, a Four Seasons (from $425, fourseasons.com/buenosaires) that’s hard to miss with its horse sculptures out front, thanks to its new equestrian-loving, Dubai-based owner. The hotel is in the middle of a $40 million renovation, with new rooms, the Pony Line bar that’s bringing serious mixology to a city finally embracing cocktail culture and Elena, a modern restaurant and meatery with a gorgeous, airy, double-height design, superb charcuterie and dry-aged steak along with composed dishes like butter-soft beef cheeks and paella that bring in a hip, food-loving crowd. But the old-money appeal of the Four Seasons remains; it still includes “La Mansion,” a historic building that features elite suites and party spaces for blowout events. This is where Madonna stayed while filming “Evita.”

San Telmo

This neighborhood’s Sunday-only street fair is a major tourist attraction, but the indoor Mercado de San Telmo is open daily and you can stop by on a weekday for a chill afternoon of shopping. Locals come for groceries, but you’ll also find antique phones and electronics, old movie posters, jewelry, leather, home furnishings and retro-hipster T-shirts. Nothing here is fancy, but most of it is a lot of fun. And Coffee Town (facebook.com/ coffeetownsantelmo), a new latte-art spot in the middle of the market, is where we met up with local food blogger Allie Lazar (pickupthefork.com). Lazar took us around the corner to El Rey del Chori, an outdoor space that’s really just a grill and a bunch of plastic tables and chairs. We tried a $4 chorizo sandwich (choripan) and an enormous $7 pork shoulder (bondiola) sandwich, both of which we dressed ourselves with chimichurri sauce, hot peppers and pickles. Tremendous. The street food of kings indeed. San Telmo is also known for one of the city’s most storied steakhouses, La Brigada (parrillalabrigada.com.ar), the spot that’s famed for showing off how tender its meat is by having waiters cut it with a spoon. Still a neat trick. The space, with lots of soccer memorabilia and old photos on the wall, is favored by locals who think a ribeye and a few beers works just fine for lunch or dinner. This restaurant is in every guidebook, but there are no tourist-trap prices here: $20 gets you a huge steak. If you want to stay around this lively area, go nearby to the center of the Old Town, where the InterContinental (from $179, intercontinental.com/buenosaires) offers solid white-glove service, an indoor pool/solarium and sweeping vistas of the city’s classic architecture at an extremely reasonable price point. This is an easy spot for a romantic splurge, with packages including in-room breakfast, nightly sparkling wine and petit fours that start at less than $250.

Puerto Madero

High meets low in this waterfront neighborhood. You can overpay for the most coveted cuts of beef at the ultra-popular Cabaña Las Lilas (laslilas.com) or you can eat excellent street food from one of the dozens of sausage and steak-sandwich stands perched along the water on the Costanera Sur. Those stands are open all day and all night, so come by before or after you check out Rojo Tango (http://www.rojotango.com), the sultry, intimate cabaret-style show at the Philippe Starck-designed Faena Hotel + Universe. That’s part of developer Alan Faena’s Faena District, which also includes high-end apartments and the Faena Arts Center with its contemporary exhibitions. A warehouse area that’s been transformed into a luxury destination in the last 15 years, Puerto Madero features lots of new-school architecture including a Santiago Calatrava-designed footbridge and Faena’s Norman Foster-designed residences. But the shirtless, perma-tanned, big-bellied old men that sit by the sausage stands in Speedos every day are as much a sight to behold.

Tigre

A waterfront town in the Buenos Aires Province, Tigre is about a half-hour drive from the center of Buenos Aires and a soothing escape from the traffic and noise of the busy city. The town, located on the Paraná Delta, is seeing new high-rise development, but it’s still delightfully funky. Have your hotel book a boat cruise with Expedición Delta’s Juan Pablo Causse and Juan Esteban de Jager (facebook.com/deltaribstour), two guides who also offer kayak tours (eldoradokayak.com) and are just the right mix of informative and chill — fellas you’d be happy to share a six-pack with. They’ll take to you to see shipwrecks near storage facilities that house expensive boats. You’ll pass by pricey restaurants and a gargantuan complex that used to be a grand casino and is now a museum, and you’ll then weave through narrow streams and encounter ramshackle shacks that house big families with lots of puppies. Lodging options are limited here; the impressive InterContinental Nordelta Tigre (from $220, ihg.com) is accessible by both water and land, and it features a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course and easy access to a boardwalk with dining and nightlife. But you go to Tigre to relax, so take advantage of the exchange rate and hit the hotel’s spa, where $75 got us a truly international experience: a one-hour Thai massage given by an Argentine while a bossa nova cover of “Like a Prayer” played in the background.