Guides & stories
A Guide to Chacarita, the Neighborhood Growing Behind the Cemetery
Why Chacarita is becoming the favorite of people who already know Buenos Aires: a huge cemetery, Gardel's grave, the Sixth Pantheon and a food scene that never stops opening new places.
For years, visitors to Buenos Aires moved between the parks of Palermo and the tombs of Recoleta. Chacarita was barely on the map. That has changed: chefs, artists and coffee people started moving in a few blocks from the cemetery, and today the neighborhood has one of the most interesting food scenes in the city.
The cemetery is the natural starting point. It's larger than Recoleta and dates back to 1871, when a yellow fever epidemic forced the city to expand its burial grounds. Among its tree-lined avenues lies Carlos Gardel, and below, half hidden, is the Sixth Pantheon: a concrete work by architect Ítala Fulvia Villa and one of the most striking pieces of funerary architecture anywhere.
Step outside and the contrast hits right away. On Jorge Newbery and Dorrego you'll find specialty coffee shops, bakeries and vermouth bars like Sifón Sodería, where the aperitif comes on tap with soda and the sidewalk fills up at sunset. A few blocks away is El Imperio, a neighborhood pizzeria that has been serving one of the most generous, famous fugazzettas in Buenos Aires for decades.
That's Chacarita: a neighborhood standing right between its history and what's happening now. Worth walking before it gets crowded.
