Location: 825 Av. de Mayo
Neighbourhood: Monserrat
Opening: 1858
It is the oldest café in the city. The marble and wooden tables, the old pictures on its walls, the traditional menu, the waiters, and the customers turned it into the archetype of the bar in Buenos Aires.
A French immigrant called Touan founded it in 1858. The name was the one of a trendy café at the Boulevard des Italiens in Paris. The Tortoni established in its current location in 1880 (until then it was around the corner, where Roberto Arlt square is currently located).
At the end of the 19th Century, another French, called Celestino Curutchet, bought the café. In 1898 he asked architect Alejandro Christophersen the building of the entrance on the Avenida de Mayo, where it actually remains.
Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the Tortoni is visited by artists, politicians, and office workers from downtown. Jorge Luis Borges, Luigi Pirandello, García Lorca, Julio Cortázar, Arturo Rubinstein, and Carlos Gardel used to visit it, among other people. Pictures, poems, and busts in the interior tell the story of this bar.
Jazz and Tango shows are performed at the Tortoni. There are some typical dishes and desserts on the menu, such as the "leche merengada," that can only be bought here.
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