Buenos Aires keeps a legal register of its notable bars, and three of these five are on it, which we checked in the statute rather than taking anyone's word. Vermouth on tap, beer brewed in the basement, and a flower shop with a bar underneath it.
- 1 · The Cold Open
El Federal
The 1864 is the building, and the city's own heritage record says so: an Italianate corner that opened as a pulpería and spent most of its life as a grocery with a drink counter. The confectioner's bar top is about 1907. It was declared a site of cultural interest in November 2004 and it is on the city's legal register of notable bars. It brews its own beer now, five taps of it, and pours vermouth, gin and tonic and cider straight from the tap, which is not what the room looks like it would do. Its website has gone dark, so ring rather than click.
the building 1864, a pulpería then a grocery, a bar notable now · roughly 11.30am till 11.30pm, later weekends; the clock is aggregator grade, ring first · verified Aug 2026
- 2 · The Detour
Café La Poesía
Rubén Derlis was a poet and a journalist, and in 1982 he opened this on the corner of Chile and Bolívar and ran reading cycles out of it. It closed in 1988 and stayed shut for twenty years, reopening at the end of 2008 under new owners. A brass plaque marks the table where Horacio Ferrer met the woman he wrote Lulú for. On the legal register. The house beer is the same as El Federal's and the same group behind it, and the same dead website: nothing operator-controlled since March, so ring before you walk over.
opened 1982 by a poet, dark from 1988 to 2008 · daily 8am till 2am, no reservations · verified Aug 2026
- 3 · The Anchor
Desnivel
Ernesto Fontanella opened this in December 1993 with borrowed tables and chairs. He wanted to call it Los Caminantes and kept the old sign instead, so the name is older than the business and nobody can now tell us what wore it before. His wife Liliana and her brother and sister run it. Call it a parrilla if you like, but it pours eighty odd different drinks: Patagonia amber and IPA on the tap, thirty two red wines, sangría and clericó by the litre. Closed Mondays, which catches people out.
est. December 1993, and the name came with the building · Tue-Sun noon till midnight, closed Mon · verified Aug 2026
- 4 · The Wildcard
Los Galgos
The 1930 is repeated everywhere and documented nowhere, and one account has drinkers in here from 1966 instead. The house itself is 1879. What is certain is the resurrection: the Ramos family shut it in the middle of the last decade and Julián Díaz and Florencia Capella of 878 reopened it on 1 December 2015. It is a vermouth house and it means it. Vermut on tap, a bottle with two soda siphons and a bowl of ice to share between you, and they will refill your own bottle cheaper. The cocktail list cites its sources.
the house 1879, the bar says 1930, the room dates from 2015 · from 8.30am, till midnight, 1am Fri and Sat · verified Aug 2026
- 5 · The Last Call
Florería Atlántico
A flower shop on Arroyo with a cold room door at the back and a bar down the stairs behind it, opened in 2013 by Renato Giovannoni. The shop is not a front: it is the same business and it sells cut flowers and the entire wine list. Number ninety in the world's fifty best bars last year. The gin is his own and it turns up in half the drinks. One cocktail is built on Buenos Aires rainwater and another on Atlantic seawater, and they are not joking about either. The legislature put a plaque on the wall in January 2026.
opened 2013, a working florist over a bar · daily 4pm till 2am, last call 1.30am · verified Aug 2026