Buena onda en Buenos Aires

Buena onda means good vibe and is often used by Argentinians to describe an ambience in a bar or club. After having lived in Buenos Aires for more than two months now, I am happy to extend this term to describe the whole city – very liveable, with excellent night life and effortlessly cool.

BA has several quite distinct neighbourhoods (barrios) with something for everyone:

Puerto Madero, located in the old docks, is the most modern part of the city with new high rise condominiums, red brick warehouses converted into offices or restaurants and a nearby natural reserve.

Microcentro is the commercial heart of BA with plenty of offices, government buildings, shops, ubiquitous street vendors and lots of noise – particularly on what Argentinians consider to be the widest avenue in the world (9 de julio).

San Telmo is artistic, unpretentious and affordable.

Recoleta is a synonym of posh and could easily be confused with some barrios of Madrid or Paris.

Boca on the other hand is very working class – home to milongas (tango venues), picturesque Caminito street with colourful houses and Boca Juniors’ football stadium, tastily named La Bombonera (Chocolate Box).

Last, but not least - Palermo. It is a green haven of the city with vast parks, all kinds of shops, plenty of trendy clubs and boutiques, good restaurants and all other good stuff that makes it great to live, rest and have fun.

Palermo, particularly its parts called Soho and Hollywood, is also the best place to go out at night – this is where the city’s buena onda is at its best. Night life in BA is usually divided into three stages: dining, socialising in bars and dancing. This is hardly different to, say, Mediterranean cities, or even places like London, but BA has its own specific pace.

1.     Dining. Porteños, as residents of BA are known as, go to restaurants at 9pm the earliest, but you can usually have dinner even until 1am. Same goes even for coffee – Starbuck’s stays open past midnight, whereas e.g. in London you are politely asked to leave just after 9pm. Typical dinner would comprise a tasty steak (asado) with wine, pizza with bear or empanadas. By the way, both Argentinian steaks and pizzas are probably the best in the world, as well as reasonably priced.

2.   Socialising in bars. After dinner, usually around midnight, porteños hit the nearby bars. Bars here are usually uniquely and creatively decorated, particularly the secret ones. These are bars with no signs outside – you just need to know where to go. One of the ones I have been to is entered via a red telephone box located next to a trendy boutique – you need to dial a special number and only then the door opens

3.   Dancing. There is no point in going to a proper disco (boliche) before 2am, unless for a drink. Going after 4am is however not a good idea either as many of them close the doors for new entrants at that time. DJs usually play international dance music, but some venues focus on more Latin genres such as salsa or reggaeton. The great thing is that there are usually no stupidly rigid dress codes, but people are fashion conscious and usually dress trendy.

I mentioned earlier that Buenos Aires is an effortlessly cool city; I will now briefly explain why. One of the most important attributes of being cool is not trying too hard and the night life in BA is just that – bars are creatively decorated, but not over the top; people do not overdress (like e.g. girls in London) when they go out but still manage to dress well; secret bars are cool, but not elitist or pretentious; people know how to party but usually take it easy and focus on having good time, etc. The mixture of all the above makes Buenos Aires the most effortlessly cool city in the world, period.