“Repeat Visit To …” is an occasional series on VacayNetwork that explores leading global destinations by journalists who have had the opportunity to go beyond the iconic attractions and well-known highlights. In this first instalment, Managing Editor Adrian Brijbassi returns to what he proclaims as his favorite city, Buenos Aires.
For years I’ve told anyone who would listen that Buenos Aires is the best city in the world to be a visitor. In February, three friends decided to make me prove it, joining in on a multi-week trip to Argentina, including a 10-day stay in its magnificent capital. By the end of it, the city had conspired with me to create more devoted admirers, with every one of us vowing to return as soon as we could.

Murals commemorating the glorious 2022 World Cup victory by Lionel Messi and Argentina are noticeable throughout Buenos Aires, including in front of this bar in the Palermo barrio. At top, Palacio Duhau, a Park Hyatt property, is among the jaw-droppingly gorgeous hotels in Buenos Aires. It features a fine-dining restaurant as well as a courtyard restaurant that serves only plant-based dishes. (Adrian Brijbassi photos for VacayNetwork.com)
The reason for the enthusiasm is a fact many people from outside of Argentina can appreciate: Nowhere on the planet can you find better value. That’s largely because of a curious foreign-exchange policy that I detail later in this article. A lot of places in the world can be inexpensive, very few provide world-leading quality in any area of tourism and no urban destination can deliver what Buenos Aires can in terms of breadth of outstanding, sophisticated flavors and activities that leave you feeling like you’ve been gifted a bargain day after day after exquisite day.
Here are seven Buenos Aires offerings that I believe — and my connoisseur friends concurred — are the best in the world:
The Immaculate Steak: You’ve heard about Argentinian steak and every word is true, and likely under reported. Generations of grass-fed cattle from the nation’s Pampas has resulted in a flavor that’s decadent and buttery without effort or overcomplexity in the cooking. The best steakhouse in the city — and arguably on earth — is Don Julio Parrilla, ranked No. 2 in the World’s 50 Best Latin American Restaurants. Located in bustling Palermo, Don Julio has enjoyed so much success since I first visited it in 2017 that it now has hours-long waits for a table and serves complimentary glasses of Moët et Chandon sparkling wine and empanadas while you linger on Calle Guatemala until your seat is ready.

Don Julio Parrilla serves large, rich portions of delicious Argentinian steak. (Adrian Brijbassi photo for VacayNetwork.com)
The cost of the experience? For five adults and my 4-year-old son, Gabriel, the bill came to less than $400 (all currency figures in USD and using the Blue Dollar rate that is explained below), or about $80 per person, which included two bottles of expensive wine and three 18-ounce ribeye steaks or two orders of shortrib, and luscious dessert.
We also dined at Nuestro Secreto, another highly rated restaurant, known for its outdoor grill, or asado, where steak is slow-cooked each day. Located at the Four Seasons, Nuestro Secreto (or “Our Secret”) is another of the pricier options (in Buenos Aires’ terms) in the city. It’s worth a visit both for the cuisine and the setting, which is in the rear of the hotel where you can dine outside on the lawn or indoors in the elegant dining room.

Steak lovers bustle outside of Don Julio Parrilla, waiting for a seat at the uber-popular restaurant. (Adrian Brijbassi photo for VacayNetwork.com)
While my friends were eager to try Don Julio and Nuestro Secreto — and I was just as enthusiastic to see if they were both as good as I remembered — the dining goal for me was to find lesser-known steakhouses and restaurants that attracted local diners. Parrilla Peña was the best choice of what we tried. The experience begins with a basket of complimentary empanadas and follows with excellent steak and reasonably priced wine. The final bill was about a third of what we paid at Don Julio, or approximately $25 per person. A mind-bogglingly incredible deal.
Casual Italian Food: Buenos Aires has a deep Italian heritage and it shows in the service — where waiters are often dressed in sharp-fitting collared white shirts and ties — and the array of top-notch pizza and pasta restaurants. Do make it a point to get to Massey Familia, a local favorite that doesn’t get much attention from travelers who arrive focused on steak. In Palermo near the popular Ecoparque, Massey Familia serves a variety of pastas with a texture and taste that’s straight out of Rome. The wild mushroom ravioli ($8) is one of those crowd-pleasing dishes that you come back for.

Want a taste of authentic Argentine-style pizza? Head to Pizzeria Güerrin, a hit in the city, where you can get an eyeful and mouthful of octopus pie and more. (Adrian Brijbassi photo for VacayNetwork.com)
Avenida Corrientes is known as Pizza Street and among the most beloved is Pizzeria Güerrin, which dates to 1932 (and is so popular it doesn’t need a website). It has a takeout section at the front entrance — you’ll spot it with the lineups that go out the door. Your best option, though, is to pass up the grab-and-go choices and request a table in the small rear dining room, where the pizzas are made with a wood-burning oven that’s more than 60 years old. The thick-crust pies with familar ingredients are winners with kids (Gabriel declared the pepperoni pizza to be his favorite in the world; he’s been around for his age!) while adventurous foodies will appreciate the many novel options, including a wonderful octopus selection ($9).
A Coffee Gem: Other cities may have better depth of outstanding coffee houses (though the list would be shorter than an espresso cup: Vienna, Seattle, Barcelona come to mind) but my traveling companions were adamant that no single cafe has a better cup of brew than Cafe Zavalia. Six years ago, I wrote about accountant-turned-brewmaster Carlos Alberto Zavalia and his passion for coffee. I returned to find that he had outgrown his hole-in-the-wall shop and moved to a larger space down the street in historic San Telmo.

Named after its owner, Zavalia is a neighborhood cafe in Buenos Aires’ San Telmo barrio that serves some of the best coffee in the world. (Adrian Brijbassi photo for VacayNetwork.com)
Zavalia painstakingly roasts his coffee beans that he sources from Honduras and creates a coffee that is remarkably balanced; smooth with an eyeopening finish that hits you with just a touch of bitterness and acidity to remind you what coffee is supposed to taste like. It’s masterful and should be considered a standard bearer for artisanal quality.
Cocktail Culture: Floreria Atlantico is easily among the best and most whimsical cocktail bars in the world. Located beneath a flower shop in Retiro, its tables are booked months in advance, though you can walk-in and hope for a standing-room-only spot at the bar — which is a fine option. The drinks are intriguing, with ingredients that will seem exotic to anyone not from South America, and there are multiple Negroni options, a nod to the clientele, many of whom are bartenders and restaurateurs from abroad.

Cocktails at Hotel Faena’s Library bar are the libation equivalent of page turners — you’ll keep wanting more. (Adrian Brijbassi photo for VacayNetwork.com)
Floreria Atlantico is the go-to speakeasy but another is Victoria Brown in Palermo while venturing to the emerging Chacarita neighborhood brings you to La Fuerza, a vermouth distillery and bar that is still largely undiscovered by tourists. In attractive Puerto Madero, the ritzy Hotel Faena features the glam Library bar. The cocktails are named for writers and each drink is a masterpiece.
For views with your elixirs, you can visit any one of a number of rooftop bars in the city.
Tango Temptations: It’s debated whether tango originated in Buenos Aires or Montevideo, the capital city of Uruguay, but there’s no doubt where the dance was popularized. Buenos Aires is the beating heart of tango and it’s filled with experiences. First-time visitors huddle in La Boca, the most historic part of Buenos Aires and the place where tango dancing was documented more than 300 years ago, reputedly with male slaves from Africa making fun of their colonial masters’ waltz moves. In La Boca, you’ll spot tango performers on small stages set up at outdoor restaurants. You can also catch tango dinner shows in different parts of the city or see the Sunday evening public tango in San Telmo’s Plaza Dorrego.

A tango performer greets tourists on El Caminito in La Boca, the epicenter of the dance that is emblematic of Buenos Aires culture. (Adrian Brijbassi photo for VacayNetwork.com)
For my third visit to the city, I enlisted Kevin Carrel Footer, a tango musician and dancer from Chicago who was lured to Buenos Aires by the seductive dance. He has opened his home to travelers curious about the art, offering experiences that can be booked through Airbnb. They include a fascinating evening with renowned guitarist and tango singer Maria Volonté, cocktails included, and a day-time tango lesson that precedes a visit to a milonga, a dance hall devoted to tango. Carrel Footer is a kind, smart, and humorous teacher whose passion for tango is enthralling.
Read More: Lose Yourself in Tango in Buenos Aires
Operatic Grandeur: Teatro Colón is a wonder of world culture — yet another one in Buenos Aires. Its acoustics are perfect with a 1.6-second reverberation of sound that’s ideal for opera singers. Luciano Pavarotti reputedly complained (jokingly) that the acoustics were too good because you could hear his mistakes.

Built in 1908, Teatro Colón has a horseshoe-shaped interior beneath a domed roof, architectural features that have helped to create sound waves that perfectly cross the room in the acoustical marvel. (Adrian Brijbassi photo for VacayNetwork.com)
The theatre’s managers once considered upgrading the stuffing in the audience’s chairs but ruled it out when it was determined such a move would alter the sound. Most amazingly? Tickets to a show are ridiculously cheap, typically ranging from $2-$100 per seat.
Futbol Fever: No, the quality of the players in Argentina doesn’t compare to the Euro leagues, but in terms of feeling a sense of community and the essence of why the game is such a global phenomenon, no stadium beats La Bombonera. The home of the Boca Jrs. squad is arguably the most famous soccer stadium in the western hemisphere. Boca Jrs. are Argentina’s most beloved (and despised) team. The fans are raucous and an intense party atmosphere surrounds the stadium.
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Inside, it felt unlike any sports event I’ve attended. It was more like a rock concert — one with a mosh pit. The singing of the fans is loud and unrelenting. It was actually loudest after the opposing team scored a goal. Fans exploded in one of the team’s anthems as if in defiance of the enemy’s attempt to ruin the night. Boca Jrs. didn’t disappoint, defeating rival Platense, 3-1.
Not long ago, it was extremely difficult for visitors to Buenos Aires to get tickets to a match. All soccer teams in the country are owned by the public — who purchase memberships that include an allotment of tickets. Recently, some Boca Jrs. tickets have ended up on Airbnb Experiences and similar platforms that cater to travelers eager to witness the powerful community event. The tour operators who acquire the tickets do so by negotiating with “the hooligans” who have standing-room-only ducats. The face value of the tickets is only $7. But the experience sells for $125. Worth it? I’d say it’s one of the few times in Buenos Aires where I felt like I was overcharged. The game was fun to attend but there’s a lot of chaos and disorganization to put up with. While standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers on a single concrete step, people continued to force themselves by me in a deranged attempt to reach the front row of the section. I began to appreciate the role of ushers. At the same time, I was grateful to be there. Going through the tour operator was the only way I could see a game at La Bombonera, fulfilling a travel wish I was denied on my previous visits.

Boca Jrs. fans cheer on the home team in La Bombonera, where Diego Maradona played professionally. (Adrian Brijbassi photo for VacayNetwork.com)
The most important thing I took away was the realization of how entrenched this team and the stadium is to the La Boca residents. They represent an institution that means everything to their supporters. Winning the 2022 World Cup as a nation has only made the adoration of all things futbol more intense — and the La Bombonera experience more meaningful.
Those seven prominent features don’t even touch on the city’s other sensational highlights: its nightlife, the walkability, the safety compared to other large cities in South America, the cheap and easy-to-use subway system, the pleasant nature of the citizens, the famous Recoleta Cemetery, and the museums that feature some of the finest collections of Latin American art in the world. So much to see and do — no wonder we all want yet another visit.
How to Take Full Advantage of Argentina’s FX Rate

For travelers, paying in Argentine pesos is the surest way to get the most for your money while in Buenos Aires. (Adrian Brijbassi photo for VacayNetwork.com)
“En efectivo”, or “in cash”, is the most potent phrase in Argentina for a visitor. It will save you hundreds or thousands of dollars if you convert your U.S. dollars to Argentinian pesos (ARS) after you arrive in the country.
The key to getting the maximum value for your USD is to make the foreign-currency conversion at an exchange house sanctioned by the Argentine government — not at the airport or a bank.
These exchange houses are called casas de cambio, or “las cuevas”. They buy U.S. dollars at what Argentina calls the “Blue Dollar” rate. The Blue Dollar rate returned in 2019 after about a decade of abandonment in a country with a uniquely bizarre approach to its own currency. The “official” government rate that you would get if you paid by credit card or exchanged your money before you entered Argentina or at a bank in the country would be approximately 210 ARS (Argentine pesos) for each $1 USD. But the Blue Dollar rate is double — about 415 ARS per $1. (I made my exchange at Casa de Cambio Pago Express in the Recoleta neighborhood; the office is much like a currency exchange center in any large U.S. or Canadian city.)

Happy faces of visitors are all around Buenos Aires thanks to the inexpensive cost of just about everything. (Adrian Brijbassi photo for VacayNetwork.com)
Consider that consumer prices are based on the official rate and you can see why the Blue Dollar rate is so fantastically attractive. The re-emergence of the Blue Dollar rate is a result of the government’s response to the black market that had grown domestically for greenbacks. You could hardly walk anywhere in the main shopping district of Buenos Aires a few years ago and not hear many men shouting, “Cambio! Cambio!” Those calls for “Exchange!” are still there but I found them to be much less frequent and less vocal from my previous visits to Florida Street, home to the Pacifico Galerias mall and other shopping landmarks. The men want you to go into a private, unsanctioned place to complete the currency exchange. Though the black market still exists, the casas de cambio appear to be working, reducing the number of unsanctioned foreign-exchange transactions.

Sunset views are the big appeal at Sky Bar, located atop the Hotel Pulitzer in Buenos Aires. (Adrian Brijbassi photo for VacayNetwork.com)
The Blue Dollar is helping Argentina to build its reserve of U.S. dollars, the world’s de facto currency. A side effect is what should be a boom in visitation. The pandemic, of course, has curtailed travel. But now that people are flying abroad at a pace almost as high as 2019, Argentina is positioned to be a top choice for trip planners. The Blue Dollar rate in 2019 was about 60 ARS to $1 USD. It has increased by more than 500%.
It is nearly incomprehensible to experience the incredible cost benefits of traveling through the South American nation right now — given worldwide inflation rates. And Argentina has year-over-year inflation of almost 100%. It’s painful for residents but works to the advantage of visitors because of the foreign-exchange policy.

Set on the River Plate, Buenos Aires has a teeming financial district that has kept it as an economically vital city for global trade. A sunset sightseeing tour on the Humberto M shows you the panoramic views along the notable waterway. (Adrian Brijbassi photo for VacayNetwork.com)
A variety of circumstances have created a situation where, in my mind, this is a truly rare time to find across-the-board bargains for travelers.
Here’s why:
- Using the Blue Dollar conversion rate, my family and friends were able to enjoy the best restaurants in Buenos Aires for those low prices noted above.
- We cooked our own steak dinner, which fed us all for about $11, and it tasted better than almost any steak meal we could get back in Canada.
- Uber rides in Buenos Aires typically cost less that $4.
- Entry to many attractions are the equivalent of pocket change.
- Items that we would purchase at home are priced significantly lower than at home. Example: a bottle of Nivea shaving cream that recently cost $6.99 in Vancouver is less than $3 in Buenos Aires.

Puente de la Mujer (or Woman’s Bridge) is the landmark attraction in Puerto Madero, a port district in Buenos Aires whose warehouses have been converted into bars, clubs, and restaurants. (Adrian Brijbassi photo for VacayNetwork.com)
On top of that you’re visiting a nation whose capital is easily among the greatest in the world and whose offerings include some of the most attractive and dramatic experiences you’ll find.
Argentina has the bona fides to be declared the current leader in global tourism value and quality. The currency situation is likely unsustainable (there’s talk of repealing the Blue Dollar rate), so the time to go is now.