Buenos Aires, AR

The Palermo parrilla ranked among the world's best restaurants while still feeling like a warm neighborhood grill, with bottle-lined walls signed by guests. Grass-fed Argentine beef, in-house charcuterie, and a deep Malbec list are the draw.

A contemporary Argentine restaurant in Chacarita built on house charcuterie, an in-house bakery, and a wood grill. It's a more inventive take on the country's produce than the classic parrillas.

A Puerto Madero fine-dining room with a tasting menu that maps Argentina's regions and produce, regularly among Latin America's best. The riverside setting and the wine pairings make it a special-occasion dinner.

A famous, generous Palermo parrilla where huge cuts of beef arrive ringed by dozens of little side dishes. It's the crowd-pleasing, abundant steakhouse experience that everyone leaves stuffed.

A revived century-old bodegón and grocery in Palermo, blending classic Argentine-Spanish tavern dishes with a modern hand. The milanesa, the tortilla, and the hanging hams capture old Buenos Aires reborn.

A celebrated restaurant reviving Jewish and Eastern Mediterranean diaspora cooking — pastrami, kreplach, shawarma — with contemporary flair. It's a singular taste of Buenos Aires's immigrant heritage.

An upscale plant-based restaurant in Palermo proving vegetables can headline in a steak-obsessed city, with a striking room and serious cocktails. The creative vegan tasting changes the conversation about Argentine dining.

A tiny, wildly popular Palermo spot fusing Southeast Asian and Indian street food with Argentine ingredients. The bold, spice-driven small plates are a thrilling break from beef.

A Villa Crespo tasting-menu restaurant run by Colombian siblings, journeying through Latin American flavors beyond Argentina. The set menu and warm home-like setting make it a standout dinner.

A 1932 Avenida Corrientes pizzeria slinging thick Buenos Aires-style pizza al molde and fugazzeta to a standing crowd at the counter. It's a porteño institution best eaten elbow-to-elbow with locals.

The city's most famous café, open since 1858 on Avenida de Mayo, all marble, stained glass, and literary history. It's as much a monument to Buenos Aires café culture as a place for coffee and churros.

A historic Avenida Corrientes gelato shop, family-run for generations and famous for its dulce de leche and chocolate amargo. It's the classic porteño ice-cream stop downtown.

A bright Palermo bakery-café beloved for all-day brunch, excellent pastries, and good coffee in an airy room. It's the neighborhood's go-to for a relaxed, modern breakfast.

The Buenos Aires outpost of the famed Peruvian cevichería, bringing bright ceviches and tiraditos to a beef-heavy city. It's the place for a fresh, citrusy seafood lunch in Palermo.

A beloved Belgrano parrilla run by a Uruguayan family, its walls covered in football memorabilia, famous for the provoleta and pamplona. It's a warm, off-the-tourist-track grill the north side swears by.

A refined Recoleta restaurant specializing in Spanish-influenced seafood and Patagonian fish, a rarity in a meat-first city. It's the elegant choice for a fish-led, wine-soaked dinner.

A Michelin-starred avant-garde tasting-menu restaurant, the city's most experimental fine-dining experience built on Argentine ingredients. The long, theatrical menu is a destination dinner.

A wine-bar and restaurant in San Telmo with one of the city's deepest Argentine wine lists and a market-driven kitchen. It's the spot to drink seriously and eat well in the historic quarter.

The city's largest green space, a flat sprawl of lakes, the famous Rosedal rose garden, and tree-lined paths used for running, cycling, and rowing. It's the porteño weekend escape into green.

A surprising wetland nature reserve on reclaimed land beside Puerto Madero, with flat trails through reeds and lagoons teeming with birds and the río in the distance. It's wild nature minutes from downtown.

A graceful sloping park in Belgrano laid out by the city's great landscape designer, with old trees, a bandstand, and weekend milongas under the stars. It's the leafy heart of the north-side neighborhood.

A circular park at the geographic heart of the city in Caballito, with a lake, an amphitheater, and a weekend craft-and-book fair. It's a flat, local-feeling loop away from the tourist circuit.

The labyrinth of river channels and wooded islands where the Paraná meets the city's edge, reached by train and explored by boat from Tigre. It's a green, watery day-trip of stilt houses, rowing clubs, and riverside walks.

A riverside memorial park on the Costanera Norte honoring victims of the dictatorship, with a stark wall of names, sculptures, and flat paths along the Río de la Plata. It's a moving, contemplative walk by the water.

One of the world's great opera houses, a lavish 1908 hall with near-perfect acoustics hosting opera, ballet, and orchestra. A performance — or even the guided tour of its gilded interior — is essential Buenos Aires.

The Museum of Latin American Art, a sleek glass building holding a superb collection from Frida Kahlo to Argentine modernists. It's the essential stop for understanding the continent's 20th-century art.

Argentina's national fine-arts museum in Recoleta, with the country's best collection of European masters and Argentine art, and free admission. It's a deep, free art stop near the cemetery.

Boca Juniors' steep, intimate stadium in La Boca, where the stands seem to hang over the pitch and the crowd's roar is deafening. A match here is one of football's most intense experiences.

A cavernous, bohemian milonga in Almagro set in a former dairy warehouse, where locals dance tango under fairy lights and mismatched chandeliers. It's the antithesis of the polished tourist tango show — real, social, late.

A vast cultural center in the monumental former central post office, with free concerts, exhibitions, and a 'blue whale' concert hall. It's one of Latin America's largest cultural spaces, and much of it is free.

A pulsing improvised-percussion show at the Konex cultural center, a Monday-night institution where a drum collective whips a young crowd into a dancing frenzy. It's a uniquely Buenos Aires start to the week.

A former power plant in La Boca reborn as a concert hall and arts center, with superb acoustics and a program of free and ticketed music. The red-brick building is a landmark of the regenerated waterfront.

An 1897 wrought-iron covered market in San Telmo mixing antique stalls with produce vendors and a new wave of food counters. It's the atmospheric heart of the historic barrio, good any day of the week.

A polished tango dinner-show in the Abasto neighborhood once home to the legendary singer Carlos Gardel, with a live orchestra and dancers. It's the grand, theatrical end of the tango spectrum.

A weekend fair in the western Mataderos district celebrating gaucho and rural Argentine culture, with folk music, traditional dancing, horseback skill games, and regional food. It's a slice of the pampas inside the city.

An astonishing city of the dead in Recoleta, a maze of ornate marble mausoleums and statuary where Argentina's elite — including Eva Perón — are entombed. Wandering its avenues of tombs is unexpectedly moving and beautiful.

A short, brightly painted street-museum in working-class La Boca, where corrugated houses in vivid colors recall the port's immigrant past and tango dancers perform for the crowds. It's vivid, touristy, and unmistakably Buenos Aires.

The historic civic heart of the city and the nation, framed by the pink Casa Rosada presidential palace, the cathedral, and the colonial Cabildo. It's where Argentina's great political dramas have played out for two centuries.

The city's oldest barrio, a tangle of cobbled streets, antique shops, and faded grand houses centered on Plaza Dorrego, alive with tango and the famous Sunday feria. It's the most atmospheric quarter for an aimless wander.

A 1919 theater turned bookstore, regularly called one of the world's most beautiful, where shelves fill the boxes and stalls and a café sits on the old stage under a painted dome. It's a browse-worthy monument as much as a shop.

The towering white obelisk at the crossing of the world's widest avenue, 9 de Julio, the city's central landmark and the focus of every celebration and protest. It's the symbolic pin marking the heart of Buenos Aires.

A serene Japanese garden in Palermo with koi ponds, arched bridges, and manicured greenery, a gift of the local Japanese community. It's a tranquil pocket of calm amid the city's busiest park district.

A giant steel-and-aluminum flower sculpture in a Recoleta plaza, designed to open its petals by day and close them at night. The 23-meter bloom is a modern symbol of the city set in a reflecting pool.

Santiago Calatrava's striking white footbridge across a Puerto Madero dock, its single angled mast meant to evoke a couple dancing tango. It's the photogenic centerpiece of the regenerated waterfront.

An eccentric 1923 office tower on Avenida de Mayo designed around Dante's Divine Comedy, from a hellish basement to a lighthouse 'paradise' at its summit. Guided tours climb to a cupola with one of the city's best views.

The monumental, green-domed national congress building anchoring the western end of Avenida de Mayo, fronted by a grand plaza and fountains. Its Greco-Roman bulk closes the city's great ceremonial axis from the Casa Rosada.