There are certain prerequisites for becoming the coolest new neighborhood in town. A cafe that straddles the line between cozy and pretentious, a chef who combines the innovative with the Instagrammable, and a place so honest that it's doomed to close when rents rise. Inevitably so.
However, it must also have its quirks. Chacarita, in north-central Buenos Aires, has long been considered a lesser-known and under-the-radar neighborhood, but it has a lot to offer.
There is a cafe that also functions as a photography museum and as a jazz club. Two cavernous, strangely indistinguishable pizza halls, both of which he opened in 1947, stand side by side near a subway station, offering thick slices of dough sprinkled with mozzarella and onions. We offer And the cemetery on Chacarita's southwest side features 20th-century tango legend Carlos Gardel and pioneering aviator Jorge, among vast fields of simply marked working-class graves. An elegant monument has been erected to Newbury. This cemetery is one of her top 10 tourist attractions in Argentina, ranking second only to Recoleta Cemetery, home to the shrine of Argentina's revered former first lady Eva Her Peron.
Downtown Obelisk is just 10 subway stops away. Although the fare was recently increased to 125 pesos, it is still less than 15 cents at the official market rate of 878 Argentine pesos to the dollar. Fully walkable, Chacalita is a great place. Shop, eat, or just hang out for a few days. Earlier this year, I did so on my own and with my 19-year-old nephew Leo, who was studying (or more accurately “studying”). Argentina.
attractive shop
Chacalita, which means “little farm,” got its name because the land once served as a home garden and recreational area for Jesuit school students. It eventually became a transportation hub and working-class neighborhood of about 100 square blocks. I was completely captivated by the cobblestone streets of Chacarita, lined with single-family homes in a colonial style that blended art deco and brutalism. They are the complete opposite of the Monopoly monotony of the later stages of the game, with heavy wooden doors with old-fashioned mail slots labeled “CARTAS” and variously curious and excited characters by the infrequent passers-by. It was equipped with a wrought iron window guard that encircled the nose of a pet dog or cat. .
Many shopping streets still have a working-class feel, but Jorge Newberry Avenue doesn't. This street, named after the aviator, is home to shops, cafes, vermouth bars, as well as his vegan restaurant, Donetto, which offers a mostly mushroom-centric tasting menu for around P19,000 per person. It has become a hub for fashion-conscious people.
Some Newbury shops are charming. I thought it was a bakery because the name meant a pastry chef's boutique, but La Botica Del Pasterello is a huge store that sells artistic marble cutting boards, creative cookie cutters, and lots of cooking utensils. It was a bakery.
While La Botica is a baker's dream, Facón is a tourist's dream. The store's owner, Martín Bustamante, seeks to show that Argentina is more than Buenos Aires (and the vineyards of Mendoza and the penguins of Patagonia), offering items sourced from local masters and well-designed pieces. are doing. For 60,000 pesos, I took home a soulful yet playful scarlet rocking horse with a wispy mane created by Juan Guerosi, an artist from north-central Tucuman province.
(You might want to stop by Farena, a casual bookstore and wine bar hidden behind a brick wall and an old-looking wooden door. When I was there, it was closed for the holidays.
There are a few more hidden spots dotted around the side streets. I wandered through the open door of a large warehouse space operated by an arts and culture center called LABA. Inside, young people were spread out like Vitruvian figures, rolling around in large wheels. It was a class of what is known in Spanish as “German wheels,” but we know (as far as we know) as wheel gymnastics.
In one corner, a ground-level window offered a glimpse of a basement filled from floor to ceiling with racks of used clothing. Have you discovered some kind of hidden vintage shop?
No, I rudely peeked in the window to get someone's attention and was told that I was a company that rented costumes for movie productions. Down another block I saw a poster for a store called Fina Estampa. After looking it up on Instagram, I found out that it was a sculpture studio with a small shop and classes that were only open on Tuesdays. Good luck, it's Tuesday! And a print of a gin and tonic in a glass (which looks like a small swimming pool) now adorns the wall of his home.
charred onions and dulce de leche
The traditional side of Chacarita is worth exploring for its more down-to-earth atmosphere and cheaper food. Santa Maria's fugazetta slices, topped with mozzarella and slightly charred onions, cost 1,600 pesos and are well worth it. A churro filled with dulce de leche from Fabrica de Churros Oleros (about 60 years old, considering its apparent age) costs only 350 pesos. But what I particularly enjoyed was the P3,400 steak and fries lunch at places like Colonia 10 de July. Where the floor looks dirty even though it has just been mopped.
I only went to one place, the Café Photography Museum Jazz Club, which is both called Bar Palacio and Museo Fotografico Simik. On my afternoon visit, I peered through a cabinet full of ancient cameras before ordering coffee and a traditional sweet potato and cheese dessert at a table that serves as a stand for a Durst M605 photo enlarger. Until now he has only been seen in the eerie red light of 20th century darkrooms. The next day I came back with Leo and some friends and listened to jazz surrounded by Kodak Instamatics that were older than me and Daguerreotype machines that were older than anyone alive today.
My dinner at Chacarita was hit and miss. On our first night, Leo and I were turned away by a newly opened artisan pizzeria called Carpina. The owner was baking delicious little pies in the stone oven, but only for family and friends. So we crammed into the last remaining sidewalk table in Chiffon. This spot, named for its reusable seltzer siphon that looks like something out of the Tenement Museum to New Yorkers, is now popular throughout Buenos Aires for adding your own spritz to wine-based drinks. Even widely used like tinto de verano. That was the best part of our meal, which consisted of pretty mediocre polenta and arancini.
Our best dinner was at Lardito, a legitimate ballyhoo spot with small plates and an around-the-world feel. At a communal table decorated with lavender and white wildflowers, Leo and I dined on beef tataki (thin slices of sirloin lightly seared in oyster vinaigrette, topped with egg yolk and cauliflower foam) and ceviche for P45,000. Prices don't include wine, but the restaurant's mini wine shop offers a selection of wines for those who prefer cool labels over obscure grapes.
Battle with developers
But there were plenty of signs, literal signs, that this neighborhood might already be on its way to post-hipster glass-and-steel condos. Dozens of “NO AL NUEVO CÓDIGO URBANÍSTICO” (“No to the new urban planning law”) posters have been pasted on homes in protest of a 2018 urban planning law overhaul that encouraged things like the construction of apartments in residential areas. It is being
On my last morning, I met two women from the group Amparo Ambiental Chacarita, Maria Sol Azcona and Laura Nowidur. Amparo Ambiental Chacarita roughly translates to “protecting the environment of Chacarita.” We met at a fancy cafe, which they quickly pointed out was overpriced and dotted with foreigners.
Hearing the details of their battle with property developers, who last year helped introduce new legislation to scale back the 2018 legislation, is both hopeful and depressing. The duo showed us how easy it is to use his City of 3D online app to find out which blocks in a neighborhood are suitable and legal to build on.
Nowidor, who studied geography at the University of Buenos Aires, has drawn up plans for 300 construction projects in the neighborhood, including the 15 houses that were demolished. Real estate developers also mingle with tourists as they wander through the residential streets.
“I see them walking around ringing doorbells,” Nowidaw said. “We're telling residents, 'We'll pay $3 million' for 150 square meters of land, which equates to about 1,600 square feet.” “Then they build him 40 apartments, each of which he sells for $200,000.” (Property in Buenos Aires is often sold for cash in US dollars.)
Luckily they didn't throw me or any other visitors under the bus.
“The problem is not tourism itself,” Azcona said. “It's that a large part of the city is thought of and planned for business. And tourism is a type of business.”
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