Though not the pervasive force it once was, tango is still everywhere to be found in Buenos Aires ranging from Florida street in downtown and the San Telmo antique market on Sundays to the fancy upmarket shows which offer a more modern, but no less impressive, vision of the tango. Here are the best tango places and shows in Buenos Aires, the tango capital of South America.
La Ventana
One of the most spectacular of the more commercial tango shows. Located in a beautiful antique renovated building in San Telmo, the oldest neighborhood of Buenos Aires – their events take the form of a dinner show with different tango dancers and singers between courses and after the meal. You can also opt out of dinner and just join the show afterwards.
Do you remember that La Ventana invited the Class Adventure Travel team come and see their Tango show? We gratefully accepted, ready to see some of Buenos Aires’ best Tango performers.
(Balcarce 431, San Telmo)
La Viruta
La Viruta is a Armenian community center that at first sight seems somewhat rundown, but has a lot to offer. With the basement being the main dance floor and a authentic Armenian restaurant upstairs, they offer dancing lessons almost every night (not just tango). From Wednesdays to Sundays, it becomes a milonga (tango dance hall) or baile as they themselves call it from around midnight till after daylight the next day.
(Armenia 1366, Palermo)
Confiteria Ideal
Founded in 1912, one of the oldest tearooms in the city, its second floor houses a grand ballroom that hosts tango lessons and milonga’s almost every afternoon and evening. Various days the dancing is accompanied by live musicians and on Friday and Saturday evening they host tango shows as well.
(Suipacha 384, Centro)
Ave Tango
The name of an annual tango festival as well as of the cultural center in the La Boca neighborhood where it’s held, this is one of the more “underground” places favored by the locals. On Tuesday it’s also the home of the Flor de Milonga nights that offer affordable lessons, followed by an evening of showing your newly learned moves on the dance floor
(Almirante Brown 1375, La Boca)
