Buenos Aires drinking starts with Victor Audio Bar, No. 87 on World's 50 Best Bars 2025, and the bench behind it runs deep: we list 6 active bars across the city. 2 of them hold verified international recognition, from the 50 Best lists to the Spirited Awards. Every listing below is verified by BarMagazine, with addresses, opening hours and the signature drinks worth ordering.

A dark, neon-lit rock dive with a serious engine room, Tres Monos was opened in June 2019 by Sebastián Atienza, Charly Aguinsky and Gus Vocke, self-funded, 35 seats, since expanded with El Garage. The team distills its own bourbon-style whiskey from local grain, makes liqueurs and sake in-house, and runs La Escuelita, a school training young people from disadvantaged barrios for hospitality work. No.10 on the World's 50 Best Bars 2025 and Best Bar in South America.
Order this: Julep de D10S — Licor del Norte (three Argentine herbs), amaros, strawberry miso, grapefruit

Inés de los Santos's theatrical Palermo bar fuses France and Vietnam 'with an Argentine accent', the name recalls the French-colonial corner of Vietnam, the room by designer Eme Carranza runs from a U-shaped bar to the upstairs Arriba lounge with tasting menus, and chef Juan Carlino sends out Franco-Vietnamese plates like shrimp bánh mì. No.26 on the World's 50 Best Bars 2025.
Order this: La Vida Que Me Merezco — tequila, pineapple, lemon, vanilla
Buenos Aires' first listening bar, opened by the teams behind Tres Monos and Niño Gordo. The room takes its cue from the RCA Victor label and the audio bars of 1960s Japan, with wood panelling, leather seating and mid-century modern lighting. Its central feature is a headphone-operated jukebox that lets each guest select and hear their own track without disturbing the room. The cocktail list explores the history of the martini, and the kitchen serves American dishes. It currently stands at No. 87 on the World's 50 Best Bars 2025.

Through a refrigerator door in a working Retiro flower shop, Renato 'Tato' Giovannoni's subterranean bar celebrates the immigrant communities that built Buenos Aires, and was the first bar in South America to pour with ecoSPIRITS, flagging the serves that cut carbon. A World's 50 Best fixture for a decade (No.30 in 2023), with Giovannoni named the 2023 Industry Icon. It sits at No. 90 on the World's 50 Best Bars 2025.
Order this: Ofrenda — charqui pisco, k'oa & coca-leaf liquor, dry vermouth, Amargo Obrero
Open since around 2006 and originally a speakeasy behind a discreet Villa Crespo door, 878 grew into the bar that helped define modern Buenos Aires drinking, its own gin, vodka, whisky and bitters made in-house, a serious Argentine cellar, and the 'A Granel' refill program cutting waste. It entered the World's 50 Best Bars back in 2011 (No.25) and was twice named Argentina's best bar; the cigar-infused, Maradona-inspired Segurola y Habana is the signature.
Order this: Villa Crespo — Barricada 43, sherry, Aperol, sour orange, leicaj syrup, lime
Backroom calls itself a 'bar de autores', artisanal cocktails, Mediterranean tapas and live jazz in Palermo, open until five in the morning every day of the week.
'Sin etiquetas. Con intensidad.' Behind is Palermo's no-labels party bar, energy, emotion and real connection on Costa Rica street, Thursday to Saturday from 9pm until 5am, with a busy private-events calendar.
Boticario is Palermo's 1920s-pharmacy cocktail bar, where drinks carry playful medicinal names and the cures run from a house Old Tom gin infused with ten medicinal botanicals to a seasonally changing house beer. Small Argentine producers stock the larder; the Pumpkin & Cinnamon Penicillin is the signature prescription.
San Telmo's temple of the classic cocktail, Doppelgänger keeps a list of more than a hundred recipes, famous and forgotten, served in chilled Bohemian crystal over carefully selected ice. 'Doppel is a bar, this is hardcore,' as the house line goes: food is served, but the drinks are the point, with the Ramos Gin Fizz and Horse's Neck among the house specialities.
Opened in 2017 at the top end of Buenos Aires cocktail culture, Presidente pours beneath chandeliers along a grand bar, with a winter garden and a library-style back bar for slower drinks. Chef Martín Ávalos oversees the food, and the menu balances classics with theatrical originals like Entre las Nubes, served in a miniature hot-air balloon. No.21 on the World's 50 Best Bars 2021.
Opened in November 2025 in the new OLA Palermo complex, SOMMA spreads across 470 square meters between a main salon and a terrace of equal size with sweeping views over the Rosedal, the Hipódromo, and the Campo Argentino de Polo. Created by the team behind Presidente Bar, it is built for the full arc of a Buenos Aires night: sunset cocktails and a dedicated sushi counter early on, then a club atmosphere with a resident DJ and a busy dance floor after midnight. The list runs from the Somma Fashioned and the Negroni Inusual to house creations like the Threesome, with Campari, passion fruit, and Chandon, while chef Juan Pablo Di Cicco directs the kitchen and a VIP room hides behind the main salon.
These 12 are the starting point. The full BarMagazine directory covers every listed bar in Buenos Aires, with a map, filters by bar type, and new openings as we verify them.
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