Café Tortoni

Café Tortoni is the grand old lady of Buenos Aires cafés and one of the most atmospheric rooms in South America. Founded in 1858 by a French immigrant and named after a famous café on the Boulevard des Italiens in Paris, it moved to its present address when Avenida de Mayo was laid out in the 1890s, and its elegant façade on the avenue dates from that era. Step inside and the noise of the city falls away: a long, high-ceilinged hall of dark wood panelling, mirrors, marble-topped tables and bentwood chairs, lit by Tiffany-style stained-glass skylights and old brass lamps, with waiters in waistcoats and bow ties moving between the tables. For more than a century it was the meeting place of the city's writers, artists and musicians. Jorge Luis Borges was a regular, and he appears in bronze, seated at a table with the poet Alfonsina Storni and the singer Carlos Gardel, in a group of life-size statues that visitors love to photograph. In the 1920s it hosted La Peña, an artistic and literary circle whose members included painters, poets and musicians, and the café was visited over the years by figures from Federico García Lorca to Albert Einstein, according to its own lore. It is one of the city's officially protected Bares Notables, the network of historic cafés that the city government recognises for their heritage, and it remains the most famous of them all. The classic order is chocolate con churros, a cup of thick hot chocolate with crisp fried churros for dipping, or a café con leche with medialunas, the small sweet Argentine croissants; there are also sandwiches, tostados and cakes, and a submarino, a glass of hot milk with a bar of chocolate to melt into it.

Beating the queue: the Tortoni's fame means there is often a queue on the pavement outside, which can stretch to forty minutes or more in the mid-morning and mid-afternoon peaks. It opens early in the morning and closes in the evening, and the best times to walk straight in are right at opening, over the lunch hour or in the early evening. The queue moves steadily, and the staff manage it with practised calm. Prices are higher than at an ordinary neighbourhood café but still modest by international standards, and you are paying for the room as much as for the coffee. Service can be brisk at busy times, so relax into it and treat it as theatre.

Tango at the Tortoni: several evenings a week, the café hosts small tango shows in its back rooms, the Sala Alfonsina Storni and the basement La Bodega, with singers, musicians and a dancing couple in an intimate setting. The shows are much smaller and less expensive than the big dinner shows, and they suit travellers who want a taste of tango without a full evening's production. Schedules change through the year, so check the café's own channels and book ahead in high season. Regular café tables are first come, first served.

How to fit it in: the Tortoni sits on Avenida de Mayo between the Plaza de Mayo and the Congress building, so it makes the natural coffee stop on a walk along the avenue, between the Casa Rosada, the Cabildo and the Cathedral at one end and Palacio Barolo and Congress at the other. Go once for breakfast or merienda, the Argentine late-afternoon snack, and if the room charms you, come back for an evening show. It is a tourist landmark, but it is also a genuine survivor of the city's café culture, and an hour at a marble table here is part of understanding Buenos Aires.