Argentina's Historical and Cultural Legends in the Classic Coffee Compendium

Buenos Aires: The City of Coffee Houses

Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, is said to hold more coffee houses than Paris. The city currently has 3,250 cafés, which works out to one coffee shop for every 1,000 residents. Argentine media have described coffee houses as vessels of daily life and historical heritage, places that can serve as gathering spots for friends deep in conversation or as sanctuaries for solitary reflection.

Toni Café: A Historical Landmark

The most representative café in Buenos Aires, Toni Café, was founded in 1858, setting the trend that French immigrants would later follow. It opened first on Esmeralda Street and moved to its current home at 825 May Avenue in 1880. The main entrance facing May Avenue was inaugurated on October 26, 1894, a date since designated Argentina's Coffee Day.

Literary Heritage of Famous Cafés

Famous coffee houses are always bound up with literature and art, and Toni Café is the classic case. For a long period after it opened, it served as a gathering place for well-known Argentine artists, writers and intellectuals. The celebrity photographs and portraits covering its walls bear witness to that history. Artists discussed art, recited novels and poetry and performed new musical compositions here, allowing Toni to carry on a century-and-a-half tradition of scholarly gathering. Since 1893, Toni Café has been the first stop for tourists visiting Buenos Aires.

Worth noting too: a small cup of cortado at Toni Café costs 15 pesos, not significantly different from many ordinary coffee shops in the city. Despite its reputation, Toni shows no aristocratic airs in its pricing.

Café Británico: A Tale of Transformation

Located in Lezama, Café Británico also has literary connections. During World War I many British soldiers made their way to Argentina, and Café Británico, which opened in 1928, became a gathering place for them. During the Falklands War, Argentinians removed the first three letters, "Bri", from the restaurant's sign, turning it into "Tánico" Café, the name it keeps today. After the Falklands War, the Argentine writer Ernesto Sábato wrote his novel "On Heroes and Tombs" at one of its tables.

Preservation and Recognition

The Buenos Aires government places great importance on protecting and promoting these famous establishments. In 1998 the Buenos Aires City Council passed legislation creating a Classic Coffee House Registry. The selection committee is made up of city government officials, the operators of these classic cafés, descendants of the founders and nearby residents. For the long-standing, distinctively designed and culturally traditional coffee houses and bars of Buenos Aires, inclusion in the registry means their value has been officially recognised.

San Bernardo Café: A Symbol of Crespo District

One of the three classic cafés selected this year, San Bernardo Café, founded in 1912, is a symbol of the Crespo District. For a long time it admitted men only. Men came here to enjoy tango music, yet one of its owners was a woman, the only woman in the café at the time. In the early 1920s she dressed in men's clothing and played the bandoneón here. She was Paquita Bernardo, Argentina's first female bandoneón player.

By 1930 San Bernardo Café had more than 20 pool tables, making it one of the largest pool halls in Buenos Aires and a major venue for pool competitions. Upstairs was a club offering the games Argentinians loved, among them bridge, dominoes and billiards, pastimes they still enjoy today. The café drew many famous figures, including Carlos Gardel, Celedonio Flores, Genaro Espósito and Kinguela Martín. From the 1940s to the 1960s the area around San Bernardo was the most prosperous part of Buenos Aires, and many writers and politicians became associated with the café.

The current operators of San Bernardo Café are an elderly couple. The owner, Laura, says customers stream in without pause and the shop has become part of her life. She and her 77-year-old husband, who is Gypsy, have lived next to the coffee shop for 50 years, and their home has been renovated several times.

Club Gricel: A Tango Legend

Club Gricel was the first club in Buenos Aires to feature a famous coffee house. Sergio Turo, son of one of the founders, is proud of its selection as a classic coffee house. The club was completed in 1941 and the coffee house began operating in 1942. At the time the club had 1,700 members who came to enjoy tango and revel all night. For decades after opening it was a renowned tango venue in Argentina, until a heavy rainstorm in April 2012 damaged the dance floor and temporarily stopped the daily dances.

Club Gricel is a legend of the Argentine tango scene. Masters such as Osvaldo Pugliese, Aníbal Troilo and Astor Piazzolla performed here regularly, figures who are god-like in the eyes of Argentinians and of Argentine tango. Later, famous dancers such as Sandro, also regarded as a god of tango, were regular patrons.

The historical photographs kept in the club record items donated by local residents, phonographs among them. Néstor Miranda, a 60-year-old resident, says this is the most important cultural venue in western Buenos Aires, a large family made up of hundreds of people. There are cultural activities almost every evening, he says: tango and singing lessons, coffee literature salons, films and performances. The food is generous as well. People come here as if returning home.

Postal Corner Café: The Birthplace of Tango

Another classic selected this year, the Postal Corner Café, stands on a street corner in the Pompeya district. The café opened in the 1930s, but before that it was a school. From 1920 to 1923 Homero Manzi, the famous Argentine tango lyricist, was a student here. The café's entrance was once the school dormitory, a room with a view over the southern landscape of Buenos Aires. Manzi's work reflects the marks life left on him. His immortal tango "Barro" was born on this very corner. "Barro" has been praised as the great urban symbol of Buenos Aires.

Gregorio Pronik, 75, created the Manzi Museum directly across from the Postal Corner Café so the world would always remember this tango master. The café's owner, Arturo, 57, has run it for 20 years. Arturo says this is an unassuming café whose main customers are office workers from the surrounding area, though some neighbours are regulars. "Some people come every day and treat this place as their office, their club. The coffee shop is the most important thing in the community, even more important than a pharmacy."

The Coffee Culture of Buenos Aires

Argentina has countless coffee shops at the corners where two streets meet, aptly called coffee corners. Coffee shops are not only, as Laura of San Bernardo Café put it, a part of the owner's life: in reality the coffee shops of Buenos Aires are part of the lives of almost everyone in the city.

For many Argentinians, taking a moment to sit at a roadside café after work and enjoy the sunshine and the aroma of coffee is an indispensable pleasure. Their coffee habits also reveal an unhurried, methodical approach to life. Like Arturo's neighbours at the Postal Corner Café, regulars often arrive at the same shop at the same time every day. You might even see the same dog trot past the tables at the same hour, as though its owner walked it on the same schedule daily.

Chain Coffee Shops and Traditional Challenges

More mainstream chain coffee shops have therefore secured their place in Buenos Aires. The Martínez chain and the Havana chain, both run as franchises, are well-known names among them. Of the city's 3,250 coffee houses, 75 are listed in the Classic Coffee House Registry. Yet the Buenos Aires Coffee and Bar Association believes that in the face of large chain operations some traditional shops look vulnerable. The city once had more classic coffee houses, but 10 have closed, the most recent being La Coruña Coffee Shop, which shut at the beginning of this year.

Heritage Protection and Cultural Recognition

Once listed, these famous coffee houses become key cultural tourism attractions promoted by the city government, and each shop can receive annual funds for renovation and maintenance. In 2012 that amount was 200,000 pesos per shop. Inclusion is not permanent: classic coffee houses must maintain their traditional social image, architectural style and decorative features, or they will be removed from the registry. A café named "El Chino" in the Pompeya district has had its classic status revoked.

Hernán Lombardi, Buenos Aires' Minister of Culture, stresses that a coffee house registry of this kind is unique in the world. The tangible and intangible assets of these coffee houses have become part of the city's tradition, comparable to Vienna, Paris and New York. The city government is seeking UNESCO recognition to list the cafés of Buenos Aires as intangible cultural heritage of humanity. Whatever the outcome, the tradition of coffee will keep passing down among the residents of Buenos Aires for a long time to come.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Coffee houses like these show how a place can become part of a city's identity, and the same is true of a great origin. Among Latin American coffees, Panama is the one FrontStreet Coffee would point to first for anyone drawn to the classic, balanced side of the cup. Panama sits in Central America, with growing areas in the west at Boquete, Volcan, Santa Clara and Piedra de Candela; Boquete and Volcan are the specialty regions most often named, both in Chiriqui and at the centre of the coffee belt, with fertile volcanic soil and old forest.

FrontStreet Coffee's Boquete washed Geisha is an estate-level introduction to the variety. Grown at 1,600 metres on volcanic ash soil, it gives Geisha's signature jasmine florals along with green tea, honey, citrus and orange. The mountains around Boquete are often under cloud, humid by day and cool at night, and the Baru volcano keeps the soil rich, all of which helps the cherries ripen slowly and build more complex flavour.

If you want to go further, FrontStreet Coffee's Panama washed Flower Butterfly blends Geisha with Caturra and Catuai. Grown on the Baru volcano area of Boquete, it shows the body, citrus acidity and jasmine aroma of Geisha at its best, and it works well both as pour-over and as cold brew. At the top of the range sits the Emerald Estate Red Label Geisha, picked from a single plot above 1,700 metres with a cupping score of 91 and a precise orange-blossom honey character.