A visit to Buenos Aires isn’t complete without sampling the colourful and cultural heart of the city.. Barrio Palermo! Vibrant street art adorns many of the buildings, turning the neighbourhood into a walking art gallery. Bright colours of bougainvillea turn already cute cafes into photogenic postcards. Gorgeous trees tower above the wide streets providing a green oasis along with much needed shade. On every corner is a bar, artisanal café, parrilla, or boutique shop. When you imagine a visit to Argentina, this is the kind of place you’re dreaming about. Our guide provides a snapshot of some highlights in the neighbourhood, including some excellent café’s bars and restaurants. We will also share the excellent hotel we stayed in (prefect location) along with some other top picks! However, this isn’t a ‘complete guide’. Despite staying for 5 days, we only scratched the surface, and the beauty of a neighbourhood like Palermo is you keep finding new ‘gems’ every time you explore.
A few top recommendations for your visit to Palermo!
Stay in Palermo during your visit to Buenos Aires!
While the Argentinian capital has many nice neighbourhoods, after exploring many of them, Palermo is the clear winner in regards to location of where to stay! Buenos Aires is an enormous city, so no matter where you stay, you’ll likely need to catch an Uber/Taxi to get to other neighbourhoods, but Palermo’s location, combined with the density of restaurants, cafes, bars, shops, and more make it an easy choice. Additionally, the neighbourhood is very safe (for South American standards – see below), and it is located only a 15 minute drive from one of Buenos Aires airports (Jorge Newbury). We have provided some excellent recommendations of where to stay in Palermo below!
Palermo is a safe neighbourhood.. but don’t get too relaxed
Overall, Buenos Aires is a relatively safe city, especially for South American standards. However, in such a big city, especially one with mixed socioeconomic status, there will always be unsafe areas, and opportunistic individuals. In particular, areas like Centro (especially near Parliament Building), La Boca, and San Telmo (near the market), felt the most unsafe. Contrastingly, Palermo felt more ‘like Europe’ regarding safety. We felt safe in this Barrio, and walked around at night, women were walking on their own comfortably, there were not many ‘unsavoury characters’, and many police were seen in the neighbourhood.
Our recommendations regarding safety in Palermo (and all of Buenos Aires), would be..
- Have a cross body bag/bug bag: keep your key items close to your body. Backpacks can be opened easily, so have them facing forward if you do choose to bring one.
- Don’t walk around with your phone out. While in Palermo we observed many people walking around with the phone out (and it seemed safe).. other neighbourhoods we would highly recommend against this, and it is a good practice to have in Palermo. If you need to check your phone, do it in a well lit area, or inside store.
- Overall, don’t flaunt wealth. Nice watches, jewellery etc may make you a target for opportunistic individuals. While Ky had his camera in Buenos Aires, certain areas we would keep it in the bag, then get it out to take photos, before putting it back in, rather than walking around with it like we did in Europe/Asia. However, Palermo was definitely safe enough during the day to have a camera out, just be careful.
- Finally, be aware of your surroundings and people nearby. The locals we on a whole so, so friendly and helpful, but there will always be a small minority who may look to take advantage of you. Violent crime is low in Buenos Aires, particularly in Palermo, but theft can still occur.
Sample the excellent café culture!
Big cities around the world have come in leaps and bounds regarding their ‘3rd wave’ coffee culture (especially since we started travelling around 10 years ago). Palermo has an excellent café culture, with so many coffee shops that we lost count. We’ve provided a few that we enjoyed below, but you’ll likely find many more excellent options around the neighbourhood.
Try a steak at one of the numerous parrilla restaurants
The parrilla restaurants are iconic to Argentina, and found all around the city in Buenos Aires. A ‘parrilla’ is a typical streak restaurant, or grillhouse. There are a plethora of options, from mid-range to high end ‘best in the world’ type restaurants. You simply can’t visit Palermo without trying one of these restaurants, and we have a few recommendations below. The iconic Don Julio is one of the most popular and well known parrilla restaurants, labelled in many guides as a top 10-40 restaurant in the world! We visited (see our Don Julio experience here) and can safely say the hype, and price, are justified.
Wander the gorgeous streets
The Palermo neighbourhood is one of the most vibrant in Buenos Aires. From the street art to the bougainvillea, it’s simply gorgeous. Even the cafes and restaurants are aesthetic! You will also find numerous little ‘oasis’ in the barrio, including the Moroccan themed park called Patio de Marruecos.
Additionally, the street of Murales artisticos del Soho is a must visit. Home to some of the most colourful artwork, this is another alleyway that has to be on your list!
Enjoy the Palermo street markets
Over the weekend Palermo’s central streets and main square houses a lovely market. Filled with little stalls selling hand made wares, products, vintage soccer jerseys and more, it’s another great experience if you’re in the neighbourhood during the weekend!
Sample Palermo’s nightlife
Home to some of the best bars in the region, Palermo is a fun place at night. Most of the restaurants spill onto the streets in ‘Europe style’ set ups, while bars are open late into the night, with a range from Speakeasys through to romantic jazz bars. Even if you’re not a big drinker, we recommend checking out a few of the options on the list below.
Food, coffee, bars & more in Palermo
While we researched in advance, and stumbled upon some gems, we also want to give a little shout out to some of our friends and Buenos Aires Italian family who helped with some excellent recommendations in Palermo!
Our favourite café’s in Palermo for good coffee and vibes!
- Cuervo Café: One of our favourites in Palermo, with specialty coffee and great vibes. Grab a coffee and sit by the window to people watch.
- Piccolino Café: A light filled café with excellent coffee and tasty baked goods. Another top pick in Palermo!
- LAB Coffee: One of the best coffee’s in Buenos Aires can be found at LAB. Friendly staff, good vibes and top coffee.. what more do you want!
- Moshu Treehouse: One of the more aesthetic café’s in Buenos Aires, this little oasis is worth checking out.
- Tribu Coffee & Roasters: The list of specialty coffee shops in Palermo is endless, and Tribu is a great choice for a brew!
- Rebellion: Soak up the street vibes at the aesthetic Rebellion. Good for a coffee, or a drink on the street.
- Seattle Cafe: Located right next to our hotel of Casa Joesph, this hole in the wall shop delivers excellent coffee!
This is only a small sample of the many great café’s found in the area. We’ve likely missed heaps, as we didn’t have time to try all of them (there’s so many!). Share some of your favourites below if we’ve missed them!
A few restaurants you want to try in Palermo:
- Don Julio: The ‘most famous restaurant in Buenos Aires’ should be on your list. Yes it’s popular. Yes it’s more expensive than many in the area. Yes you have to line up (even if you have a reservation). And yes it is absolutely worth it! The experience of Don Julio was one of our Buenos Aires highlights. You might get equally excellent steak elsewhere, however the whole visit to Don Julio is worth the cost alone. See our Don Julio guide and experience here.
- Picsa: This Italian/Argentinian fusion restaurant is home to some of the best empanadas in Palermo! While the pizza is supposed to be excellent, we sat on the street and sampled their empanada range along with their home made Aquarius Pomelo (local grapefruit drink). Staff are friendly and vibes a great.
- Maja Jamoneria: An Italian style deli with a huge range of tasty sandwiches. The staff are super friendly and the food is great! A good lunch option.
- We also recommend looking into these highly reviewed restaurants which were either closed on the days we wanted to visit, or we didn’t get a chance to check out:
– La Cabrera: Another top steakhouse which is popular in Palermo. Look into their happy hour between 6.30-8pm for discounts.
– El Preferido de Palermo: Popular, and for good reason, this highly rated restaurant is owned by the same team as Don Julio. It was busy every time we walked past, the vibes on the street were excellent, and food looked top quality! Add it to the list!
–1810 Cocina Regional: Home to highly recommended empanadas and traditional food (e.g. stews, pies etc). Sadly was closed when we went to visit!
–Nuestra Parilla: Another steakhouse that was highly recommended to us. One our list for next time!
– Bodegon Nunez: Less fancy, but authentic Argentine cuisine. Worth checking out!
– Las Petunias: colourful / picturesque on main street – go for a drink and a vibe, not necessarily the food.
Bars in Palermo you don’t want to miss..
- Uptown: One of the best speakeasy bars we have ever visited, Uptown
- Jazz Bars: there are numerous in Palermo Holywood, including Ser y Tiempo and La Grande (Tuesday nights)
- Gris Gris: A highly recommended bar that we didn’t end up making it to (we had too much fun at the bars above). Local feel and apparently excellent vibes.
- Backroom Bar: Another speakeasy worth checking out in the neighbourhood!
- Pain el Vin: A little wine bar to add to your list of bars worth checking out!
Try the famous Argentinian ice cream!
According to the locals, Argentinians eat more ice cream than many countries in the world. You’ll see handmade stores on many corners, however our Argentinian family took us to Rapanui, and we think the excellent ice cream, combined with the beautiful indoor garden, make it a must visit!
Where should you stay in Palermo?
Palermo is a large barrio, so it can be hard to work out the ‘best’ spot to get a hotel or Airbnb. After wandering the area, we would recommend staying close to Palermo Soho, or just on the fringes of this area. While Palermo Holywood is also nice, it is home to many of the bars in the neighbourhood, making it a bit louder of an area. Even if you want to sample the nightlife (which we definitely recommend), it’s only a short walk or uber/taxi from one side of Palermo to the other.
A few recommended places to stay in Palermo:
- Casa Joseph: This is the lovely and excellently located hotel we stayed in Palermo. Home to large rooms, friendly staff, and only short walks from places like Don Julia, Piccolino Café and the main streets. A great option.
- Luxury Apartments In Palermo – by BueRentals: Gorgeous, light filled apartments in a lovely Palermo location.
- Premium Studio at Central Location Palermo: This is a well priced, well located entire studio in the lovely Palermo neighbourhood. A good option!
- Anywhere Palermo Soho: A great hotel in the trendy Palermo Soho, this is a top choice right near many of Palermo’s top picks.
- Boutique Design Studio in Palermo Soho: Another boutique hotel studio in a great Palermo Soho location.
Not seeing anything you like? Take a look at the options below or search more Palermo accommodation here.
We hope this little guide helps you plan you visit to Buenos Aires and to Palermo, in our opinion, one of the best neighbourhoods in South America. Subscribe below if you want to stay up to date with our travels and free travel guides! You can also check out our social media for more travel highlights, tips & inspiration @2cupsoftravel.
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