The 28 Best Places to Drink and Stay in Buenos Aires

1. The 50 #10 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – Latin America & Caribbean
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Latin America & Caribbean

Named for the part of Vietnam that was once a French colony, CoChinChina is a cocktail bar in Palermo where the drinks come from Inés de los Santos, a name serious bar people say without needing to explain. The interior runs deep, with distinct rooms to discover and a hidden private room somewhere in the back. Food leans Franco-Vietnamese, bánh mì and all. Ranked 26th on the World's 50 Best Bars list, it draws the kind of crowd that knows exactly where it is going.

1. The 50 #26 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

Buenos Aires' first listening bar hides a headphone-operated jukebox inside a Palermo Soho townhouse, where each guest can cue their own song without disturbing the room. The team behind Tres Monos fitted the space with wood paneling, leather seats, and mid-century modern lamps for a private-club feel loosely borrowed from 1960s Japanese audio bars. It ranks on the World's 50 Best Bars list.

1. The 50 #87 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New International Cocktail Bar – Latin America & Caribbean

Galloping horse sculptures flank the entrance, and the polo theme carries right through to the leather-furnished Pony Line Lounge, which well-heeled Recoleta regulars treat as a personal living room. This Forbes Four Star hotel splits its 165 rooms between a modern tower and a Belle Époque mansion, the two connected through an outdoor pool and terrace. It holds a certain conviction that luxury and local character belong together, and the renovation made that argument in full.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. The 50 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award

A converted 1930s palace in Recoleta, built by a government minister who came back from France with big ideas and a fondness for Louis XVI excess. The silk curtains and crystal chandeliers are original to the spirit, if not always the fixtures. As Buenos Aires luxury hotels go, this one has the bones to back up the grandeur, with 165 rooms spread across the historic building and a modern wing tucked behind the garden.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A refrigerator door in the back of a flower shop swings open after 8pm, and suddenly you're in a large underground cocktail bar. The speakeasy conceit is well-worn by now, but the gin program gives it something real to say: a co-founder helped create Príncipe de los Apóstoles, the Argentine gin built on yerba mate and eucalyptus. It ranked on the World's 50 Best Bars list, which tracks for a room this committed to the bit.

1. The 50 #90 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Crystal chandeliers, white-gloved bilingual butlers, and Louis XVI furniture so gilded you feel underdressed just reading the menu: the Alvear Palace is Recoleta's grand old palace hotel, and it leans into every bit of that. The lobby bar is a long-running theater for Argentine high society. A Forbes Four Star property, it also has a rooftop pool and bar with city views, a spa, and the Alvear Grill for when you'd like someone to fuss over you at dinner.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

The menu says "this is not for everyone," and that's not false modesty: Doppelgänger stocks no beer, no wine, just a serious collection of spirits and vermouths. The cocktail bar pulls its look from 1920s and 30s Paris, Berlin, and New York, and it carries the attitude to match. Over 70 house originals share space with the classics, made with seasonal fruit and local ingredients. Come knowing what you want, or come ready to be told.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The doormen wear top hats and long-tailed coats, which tells you everything about the register this luxury hotel is pitching. Inside, Philippe Starck went heavy on crimson and black marble, and the result feels more like a nightclub that happens to have rooms than the other way around. A Forbes Four Star property in Puerto Madero, it draws the kind of guests who don't need to ask where the pool bar is because someone already texted them.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

A cocktail bar in Palermo where Jules Verne sets the dress code: expect brass fittings, moody lighting, and a menu built around the cities Phileas Fogg visited in 80 days. The drinks do the traveling so you don't have to. Beer, wine, and gourmet hot dogs round things out for anyone who prefers to stay grounded. It draws a crowd most nights, so arriving early is the Fogg-approved strategy.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The unmarked entrance and exposed brick suggest a place that has been setting the template long enough to stop explaining itself. Gran Bar Danzón is a cocktail bar near the business district, which means the afterwork crowd fills the long, backlit bar early and the well-traveled hotel guests follow. The room tries slightly harder than it needs to, but the ambiance lands anyway, which is probably the truest sign of an old-school institution.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Backlit bottles and jars line the bar like an apothecary's shelves, except the contents are house-made distillates, syrups, and infusions destined for cocktails. Al Fondo is a speakeasy bar tucked upstairs inside a half-restored historic house in Nuñez, all bare brick and textured plaster, dark enough that your eyes need a moment. The cocktail list is compact and inventive, and the room feels like a good secret someone finally told you.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The walls, the neon sign outside, and the staff uniforms are all the same shade of aggressive orange, so you'll spot this gin bar on Pasaje Echeverría before you've finished reading the street sign. Everything on the menu is built around juniper, which is either a red flag or the entire point depending on who you're with. A Discovery pick from The 50, it draws a crowd that has strong opinions about their Negroni variations.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Posters on the walls, a few tables out front, and cocktails that require more thought than the room lets on. El Limón is a cocktail bar in Villa Crespo with a concise list that rewards attention, including a sous-vide Negroni that earns its place without making a fuss about it. The whole operation has that loosely assembled look that tends to mean the person behind it knows exactly what they're doing.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The door policy here is not a rumor. Frank's is a speakeasy in Palermo Hollywood that takes the 1920s brief seriously, with a polished wooden bar, flocked wallpaper, and chandeliers in the plural. It's only open Wednesday through Saturday, and booking is less a suggestion than a condition of entry. The cocktails lean boozy, which tracks. A Discovery on The 50 list keeps it on the radar of people who visit cities for their bars.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

You enter through a sushi restaurant, give a password, and surrender your phone at the door. Nicky Harrison is a speakeasy cocktail bar in Palermo that commits hard to the bit: low light, live jazz, tarot readings, and Prohibition-era drinks named for the era's shadier figures. The no-photos rule means the crowd actually talks to each other, which feels both radical and deeply old-fashioned. Named for a real bootlegger, which somehow makes the theatrics feel earned.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A full New York subway carriage sits in the middle of this Palermo Hollywood cocktail bar, considerably cleaner than anything the MTA runs. The concept goes deep: metro tiles, graffiti, transit ads, and a drinks menu organized by subway line. The theming could easily tip into theme-park territory, but the bartenders actually know what they're doing, and the room slides from low-key to full party without anyone announcing the transition.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

No sign outside, just a number that matches the address and a bouncer who'll point you right. Ocho7Ocho is a cocktail bar in Palermo that started as a speakeasy with a velvet-rope attitude, though the days of auditioned guest lists are long gone. The front room is roomy and deliberately scruffy, with classic rock and soul played loud enough to make conversation an achievement.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

A convincing brick wall at the back of the café slides open to reveal a dim steampunk warehouse behind it, complete with a giant backlit clock all cogs and gears above the bar. Victoria Brown is a bar in Palermo that moonlights as a Victorian café by day, then leans into the theatre after dark. Old-fashioned armchairs cluster around the room, and the crowd on weekends skews young and dressed for it.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide