Buenos Aires Restaurant

Argentines know how to live. A good Tango begins at dinner with friends and ends with coffee, pastries and an apertif. According to Orlando Farias, a world-class Tango teacher and organizer of the “Leaders Tango Week” festival in Buenos Aires, “going to milonga without dinner is not really Tango.”

One of our favorite restaurants in New York City is Ismael Alba and Karina de Marco’s “Buenos Aires Restaurant” in Manhattan’s East Village. Argentine culture is a fusion of Spanish and Italian influences and that’s what you will find at Buenos Aires Restaurant: traditional and authentic Argentine dishes from home recipes, complemented with a deep collector’s wine list and attentive service.

Traditional and Authentic Argentine Food

If you are gringo, you may wonder what is good Argentine cuisine, and if you are Argentine, you may long for the scents and flavors of home. To satisfy your hungers, you only have to travel as far as the East Village. Ismael’s Spanish father ran a restaurant in Argentina and Ismael carries on the family tradition.

Imported Uruguayan Beef

Empanadas and beef are signatures of Argentine cuisine. The empanadas are hand-made daily and oven-baked, not fried. They come to the table steaming hot and after a few, you may wonder if you have room for dinner. We also like the sweetbreads which reminded us of our childhood in South America.

The beef is grass-fed, open-range, from Uruguay, where the best meat of the region comes from today (even in Argentina). If you eat a lot of meat in the States, you get fat. Argentines eat more meat, but stay thin because the beef is fattened naturally. You taste the difference immediately.

Beyond the origin and quality of the meat, it is important how it is cut. Argentines butcher their beef like Europeans, so you cannot make authentic Argentine steaks from US-butchered beef. Buenos Aires Restaurant cuts their own meat in the kitchen in the traditional manner with an impressive butcher’s band saw. Buenos Aires Restaurant also serves traditional chicken, salmon and pasta dishes so there is something for everyone.

Home Recipes

Karina de Marco's Recipes

At home we serve our family the very best that we can afford. The recipes of Buenos Aires Restaurant come from the home kitchen of Karina de Marco. In Argentina meals would be made with local ingredients, but this is New York City so the kitchen follows a best-of-the-best concept with imported ingredients like the beef from Uruguay, hams from Spain, salmon and tuna from Chile and tomatoes, pasta and cheeses from Italy.

People like me just know that the food is delicious, but food aficionados will enjoy the unique flavors of ingredients like “Cinco Jotas Ibérico de Bellota” hams imported from Jabugo, Spain. These are pure-bred Ibérico pigs, raised in free-range conditions, and fed top-quality acorns. “Bellota” is Spanish for acorn.

Pasta dishes are based on hand-made artisan pastas imported from Italy with sauces from San Marzano tomatoes from the rich soils of the San Marzano Valley below Mount Vesuvius. Many chefs consider these to be the best sauce tomatoes in the world. The first San Marzano tomato was a gift from the Kingdom of Peru to the Kingdom of Naples in 1770.

The kitchen also puts its own spin on some dishes such as the Milanesa de Horna Napolitano where the veal is stuffed with an organic tomato instead of covered with sauce. If you are Argentine, at some point during dinner, the scents and flavors of Karina’s recipes are likely to trigger a memory of your mother’s or grandmother’s kitchen.

A Collector’s Wine Cellar

Over 100 Argentine Wines

Buenos Aires Restaurant has two large wine cellars filled with the best wines in the world. Surprisingly for a small restaurant, they offer one of the biggest wine lists in New York City with everything from superb Malbecs from Mendoza, to collector wines from around the world. They carry over 100 types of Argentinean wine.

On our last visit, we enjoyed a 2009 Finca Bella Vista Malbec from a Mendoza vineyard planted in 1910 that gets a 98 point rating from “Wine Advocate.” I don’t know wine, but in that bottle was the first time I could even begin to understand the attack, the evolution and the finish of a drink of wine. The flavors kept evolving in my mouth.

Attentive Service

Authenticity is not only about cuisine, it’s about the traditional way a meal is served, the way food flows to the table in a well-timed, but unhurried manner so you can enjoy the meal with your business associates or family.

All the staff is well-trained with a deep knowledge of the cuisine and the wine. If you are not sure what to order or what wine to choose, tell your server what you like and let them take care of you. You will be pleasantly surprised.

Interesting People

Something we noticed about Buenos Aires Restaurant is that every time we go, we meet interesting people. It is one of the places where Argentines and South Americans hang out in New York City and we have met businesspeople, celebrities and diplomats there. They come because you are comfortable in Buenos Aires Restaurant whether you are in a suit or in jeans, and the ambience of the place, its “buen onda” (good vibe) makes you forget you are in New York.

A good Tango in Buenos Aires begins at dinner with friends. A good Tango in New York City begins at Buenos Aires Restaurant with traditional and authentic Argentine dishes from home recipes, complemented by lovely wines, good service and interesting people. But if you are in a hurry, don’t go because you get so relaxed that you lose track of time.

Go to Buenos Aires Restaurant to do business or with friends and family when you have time to really enjoy all the best things that life has to offer. There is an old French expression, “riche comme un Argentin” (rich as an Argentine). That is exactly how you will feel after dining at Buenos Aires Restaurant.

Buenos Aires Restaurant
513 E 6th Street, New York, NY 1009 (Between Avenues A and B)
Sun-Thu 12pm-12am, Fri-Sat 12pm-1am
(212) 228-2775

TAGS Buenos Aires Restaurant, Ismael Alba, Karina de Marco

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