Buenos Aires Food and Travel Guide: Asado, Empanadas and Parrillas
Buenos Aires lives late and eats well. The Argentine capital is European in its elegance and fiercely local in its appetites, a place where dinner rarely starts before nine and the smell of wood smoke from grill houses signals that the city's great obsession, beef, is never far away.
What to Eat in Buenos Aires
The heart of it all is asado, the Argentine barbecue, a slow communal grilling of beef ribs, sausages and offal over wood embers. To eat asado in a restaurant, you go to a parrilla (grill house) and order cuts like bife de chorizo (sirloin) or ojo de bife (ribeye), always with a bowl of bright, herby chimichurri alongside.
Beyond beef, empanadas are everywhere, baked or fried pastry pockets stuffed with seasoned meat, ham and cheese, or corn. The great street snack is choripán, a grilled chorizo sausage split into crusty bread. And the national sweetness is dulce de leche, a caramel-like milk jam folded into pastries, ice cream and the beloved alfajores sandwich cookies.
- Asado — wood-fired mixed grill
- Bife de chorizo — thick sirloin steak
- Empanadas — stuffed baked pastries
- Choripán — chorizo sausage sandwich
- Alfajores — dulce de leche cookies
Where and How to Eat
The neighbourhoods of Palermo and San Telmo are full of parrillas, from white-tablecloth institutions to smoky corner grills; San Telmo's Sunday market is also a fine place to graze on choripán and empanadas between antique stalls. For coffee and pastries, the city's historic cafés notables are worth seeking out.
An ordering tip: steak doneness matters here, so learn that jugoso is rare, a punto is medium and bien cocido is well done; locals lean rare and may quietly judge a request for well done. Bring a hearty appetite and don't over-order, as portions are large. Menus and chalkboard specials are usually in Spanish only, so photographing them to translate helps you tell the cuts apart and order exactly the steak you want.