A Neighborhood Guide to Recoleta, Buenos Aires: Cemetery Tour, Bookstores & Classic Cafes

Described as Buenos Aires’s most elegant neighborhood, Recoleta is an upper-class barrio home to some of the city’s most expensive real estate. Though it has less to offer than Palermo in terms of restaurants and bars, its leafy streets make for excellent strolling, and its classic, refined architecture transports visitors back to the golden age of Buenos Aires.

Cementerio de la Recoleta

The neighborhood’s foremost attraction is its monumental cemetery, home to the graves of prominent Argentines like national icon Eva Perón, former presidents Julio Argentino Roca and Hipólito Yrigoyen, and the writer Adolfo Bioy Casares. The cemetery covers 14 acres and contains more than 4,500 vaults, including grand mausoleums designed in styles such as Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Baroque, and neo-Gothic.

The cemetery is laid out like a city, with its grid of walkways forming a labyrinth of tombs. You can spend hours exploring each turn, marveling at the ornate decoration of the structures and learning about the lives of those entombed within.

Café La Biela

Opposite the cemetery sits La Biela, one of the city’s most famous cafes. Step inside the front door and you will be greeted by life-size statues of writer Jorge Luis Borges and his friend Adolfo Bioy Casares, who frequented the cafe along with other writers and artists.

The wooden interior is decorated with old racing memorabilia, a nod to the cafe’s history as a meeting place for champion racing drivers, among them five-time Formula One champion Juan Manuel Fangio. Outside is a large terrace under the shade of an enormous rubber tree.

El Ateneo Grand Splendid

Buenos Aires’s most famous bookstore is housed in a former theater on Avenida Santa Fe, one of the city’s main thoroughfares. The theater, Teatro Gran Splendid, opened in 1919, hosted performances by none less than the great Carlos Gardel, but in 2000 it was refurbished and converted into a four-story bookstore.

Come to marvel at the beauty of its interior and the ceiling frescoes, but don’t expect to find a quiet place to read: the bookstore is visited by over one million people every year.

Mamuschka

Bariloche's iconic chocolatier has a branch in an upscale mall in Recoleta. Come by to sample some of the best chocolate around, which tastes just as good as it does in Patagonia.

Looking for more tips on what to see and do around the city? Visit our Buenos Aires page here.