Café Tortoni
Café Tortoni is one of Buenos Aires's historic coffeehouses, on Avenida de Mayo, and a member of the city's notable bars. Its name borrows from a famous Parisian café, and for decades it was a meeting place for writers, artists and musicians.
History
According to the most accepted accounts, the café opened in 1858. Two versions explain its name. One credits a French immigrant named Touan, who set it up at the corner of Rivadavia and Esmeralda and named it after a Parisian café on the Boulevard des Italiens frequented by the city's cultural elite. The other mentions a man called Oreste Tortoni, who supposedly ran it on Defensa Street. The historian Enrique Puccia found a city guide placing the café on Defensa, while a map from 1870 places it at Rivadavia and Esmeralda under Touan's ownership.
In 1880 the café moved to the ground floor of a residence on Rivadavia Street belonging to the Unzué family. When Avenida de Mayo was opened in the late 1880s, the house lost part of its land but was kept and given a new facade facing the avenue, designed by the architect Alejandro Christophersen and completed in 1898.
Culture
For almost a century the Tortoni was the most representative café of Avenida de Mayo's traditional spirit, and today it is considered a true institution of the city. Its greatest prestige came with La Peña, founded in 1926 under the painter Benito Quinquela Martín, which gathered poets, musicians and politicians at its tables until it disbanded in 1943. Later, a group of young writers met there in the 1960s and 1970s, and their gatherings produced influential literary magazines.
Today the café remains a venue for cultural events and a classic tourist destination. Its basement hosts tango and jazz, and the Fénix Jazz Band has played every Saturday since 1978. The interior keeps the décor of its early years, with a library and billiard, dominoes and dice rooms at the back.