October 2018.

We wanted a break from the local staple of beef, and had had a pretty good Italian lunch at Sottovoce two days previous so we went for this street-corner bistro, well-reviewed by a variety of sources. It was in walking distance, and we were hungry after wandering around a couple of civic gardens. Our reservation was unnecessary, lots of room on the main floor and also the mezzanine, where we scored a ringside table with a view of the main area and street.

Our server was an enthusiastic friendly lady who did her best speaking English for which I thanked her, but the food wasn’t quite at expectation. The menu seemed a bit strangely-organized, with starters, mains, and side items apparently mixed together under Spanish and Italian headings. Unfortunately it’s not online so I’m working from memory here.

We started by sharing a buratta-based antipasto which was pretty good but probably benefited from the famous starving-client-first-bites phenomenon. Our two mains didn’t measure up. Robin’s (seen here on the right) was gnocchi in a white sauce but the sauce lacked flavour so there wasn’t much contrast with the plump dumplings. Salt helped. Mine was a bit better, round raviolis with meat filling, benefiting from a very nice traditional Italian tomato sauce. Unfortunately the meat had a dry mush consistency so things amounted to the tomato sauce with accompanying relatively empty calories from my point of view.

We drank a very nice chenin blanc, and the price as always in Buenos Aires was very good by our home standards.

This place has a pleasant atmosphere and comes across as a straightforward genuine family Italian bistro. Maybe the chef had a day off, but I suspect (in one case I know) there is better Italian fare elsewhere. Food 7.0, service 8.8, ambience 8.9, value 7.8, peace and quiet 8.1.