Best-kept secrets in Buenos Aires

22 places our drivers recommend.

• Avenida Melián (Belgrano R) · A cobblestone avenue in Belgrano R that runs under a tunnel of old trees, with big European style houses and gardens on both sides. Nothing to queue for and nothing to buy a ticket to: this is the residential Buenos Aires almost no visitor gets to see.
• Central Pan · The bakery and coffee shop that took over the old corner building at Melián and Juramento, in Belgrano R. Family bakers with four shops in the city, open for breakfast, afternoon coffee and lunch.
• Pasaje Rivarola · A single block in San Nicolas with mirror image architecture: eight identical 1920s buildings facing each other in pairs, built in the Beaux Arts style.
• Pasaje 5 de Julio · A narrow passage in Monserrat next to the Santo Domingo basilica, on what used to be the convent's orchard.
• Parque Chas · The labyrinth neighborhood: circular streets named after European cities that cross themselves more than once, laid out in the 1920s over what used to be a racetrack.
• Villa Freud · The unofficial nickname for the blocks around Plaza Guemes in Palermo, once the neighborhood with the highest concentration of psychoanalysts in the city.
• English Neighborhood (Caballito) · Six blocks of neo Tudor houses built around 1923, a garden city tucked inside Caballito and far less known than Belgrano R.
• Coghlan Obelisk · A 35 meter brick tower on a quiet residential street, built to ventilate the city's second main sewer line.
• Museo Penitenciario Argentino · A Jesuit building from 1735 that later spent almost a century as the city's women's prison, now a free museum on the history of the Argentine prison system.
• Argentine Puppet Museum · A small self run museum in San Telmo dedicated to puppetry, founded in 1983.
• Museo del Humor · Argentina's cartoon and caricature museum, inside the building of the former Cerveceria Munich in Puerto Madero.
• Bar Iberia · Open since 1897 on Avenida de Mayo, it became a meeting point for Spanish Republican exiles in the 1930s.
• Bar Roma · A corner bar in La Boca that opened as a delicatessen in 1905 before becoming one of the neighborhood's classic cafes.
• El Faro · A notable bar open since 1931 at the corner where four neighborhoods meet: Parque Chas, Villa Urquiza, Villa Pueyrredon and Agronomia.
• Bar La Academia · A billiards and board game bar open since 1930, now open 24 hours at a new address after reopening in 2025.
• Bar Oviedo · Open since 1900 in Mataderos, at the corner where the city used to meet the cattle drovers coming in from the pampas.
• Parque Rivadavia Fair · A Sunday fair in Caballito for used books, coins and antiques, the local alternative to San Telmo's Sunday market.
• Parque Centenario Fair · A daily used book fair in the park at the heart of Caballito.
• Plaza Primera Junta Antiques Fair · A Monday to Saturday antiques and collectibles fair on the plaza that gives its name to the whole surrounding area of Caballito.
• Feria de Mataderos · A Sunday fair born in 1986 to celebrate the gaucho traditions of the pampas, with horse riding shows, folk dancing and around 300 stalls of crafts and food.
• Casa de la Cultura · The 1898 building of the former newspaper La Prensa, with its Golden Hall and a dome topped by a statue holding a torch, now the city's free culture center.
• Russian Orthodox Church · The first Orthodox church in South America, built between 1898 and 1901 and funded by Tsar Nicholas II, with blue onion domes facing Parque Lezama.