How to Have the Gayest Time in South America's LGBTQ+ Capital

Buenos Aires draws you in, pulling your eye forward, its streets resembling that most beautiful of cities, Paris. Rebuilt in Hausmann fashion for the country’s 1910 Centennial, Argentina’s capital is lined with grand boulevards, gilded marble beaux-arts confections and plazas centered around monuments, including the iconic Obelisco.

Naturally, a city hyperfocused on aesthetics produces filmmakers, including director Marco Berger, a native Porteño, as locals from this Rio de la Plata port city call themselves. Berger is a prolific director, releasing feature films like Ausente, Taekwondo, and Un Rubio, among many others. Plus, he has more in the works: The Astronaut Lovers will be released this summer and premiere internationally at the Guadalajara Film Festival, Perro Perro is in post-production, and En El Bosque is now filming.

Berger’s films are marked by their intense yet furtive longing. Simmering, frightened glances men give when they are still exploring their sexuality, unsure of themselves and everyone around them. Crotch shots and homoerotic encounters. They’re also notably rooted in greater Buenos Aires: sleepy suburbs and rural exurbs, including the remote watery grass island paradise Tigre and the lonely Pampas stretching beyond the metropolis.

When asked what makes the city such a draw for gays in Argentina and from around the world, Berger says, “Buenos Aires has always been a city that is very modern. Throughout its history it is also one that has had an appearance much like Europe. It is also a place that historically has been a center for many Italians, Spaniards. This lends a sense of a diversity of classes, a culture that is wider, more open, more diverse, and this has helped over time to convert it into a city that is more modern, built from these remnants.” For LGBTQ people in particular, Berger says, “This has also made it into one of the most accepting cities of the gay world.”

The city’s current status as a welcoming place came at tremendous cost. “The truth is during the time of the dictators, a period that was very difficult in our culture, from the 1980s, there was a lot of fighting,” says Berger. “This culture of the need to fight, for the collective good of gay people, when you think of all these activists who were developing what we call the queer world. I believe you have to come and see a little of this.”

What Berger likes about Buenos Aires isn’t necessarily clubs and restaurants, but what is open and observable, people interacting in public spaces, day or night. “I like going to the theaters on Avenida Corrientes, to the cinemas in Palermo, to Plaza Italia in the Belgrano neighborhood,” he says. He loves to visit “a neighborhood called Cortazar, which is very pretty,” or Parque Agronomía and Parque Centenario, along with MALBA (the modern art museum Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires). Berger highlights the giant mechanical metal flower, Floralis Genérica, by architect Eduardo Catalano, which blooms throughout the day. He also loves Puerto Madero, a restored port area outside of downtown surrounded by a nature reserve he described as, “very beautiful in the summer.” His hometown is also a city “with so many festivals.”

Below are a few more of Berger’s recommendations. I have also added some of my own favorites—I first visited the city in 2000, then lived there on and off from 2004 to 2011, when I was writing Frommer’s Buenos Aires guidebooks—along with those of Pablo de Luca and Gustavo Noguera, the gay power couple behind Argentina’s LGBT Chamber of Commerce, the LGBTQ travel conference GNetworks360, and the website Visit Buenos Aires LGBT.

As if this dance born in the Rio Platense region and honored with a UNESCO intangible heritage designation didn’t have enough sensuality, this uniquely Buenos Aires festival usually takes place in December on the sweaty cusp of Southern Hemisphere summer. Hosted at the milonga (tango club) La Marshall in the Villa Crespo neighborhood, home to weekly Tango Queer events, the dance blends African, European and native styles, with same-sex performance harkening to its origins when men would often dance together in brothels.

While you’ll find queer June events, November is Argentina’s Pride Month, honoring the 1967 creation of LGBTQ rights group Nuestro Mundo (“Our World”), which counted writer Manuel Puig of Kiss of the Spider Woman as a member. In Buenos Aires, the parade usually takes place on the first or second Saturday of the month. It’s a nighttime pride, with folks gathering for a 6 pm kick-off from Plaza de Mayo surrounded by historic buildings, like the Casa Rosada, the Presidential Palace that’s home to Evita’s famous balcony and where I witnessed the signing of the country’s 2010 same-sex marriage law. There’s also Catedral Metropolitana, Pope Francis’s home church as Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio, when he wasn’t the progressive we think of him as now. The glorious procession heads down Avenida de Mayo, among the world’s most beautiful turn-of-the-last century boulevards, to a rally by Comunidad Homosexual Argentina and other organizations on the Congreso building steps near the National AIDS Memorial.

No visit to Buenos Aires is complete without understanding Eva Duarte de Peron. The controversial First Lady of Argentina, better known as Evita, has been portrayed by Madonna, Faye Dunaway, Patti LuPone, Elaine Page, and other Dior-clad actresses loved by the LGBTQ+ community. Evita’s gay gal-pal credentials are real: She surrounded herself with gay men from her earliest days as an actress, including designer Paco Jamandreu, whose dresses are here. Museo Evita, first curated by museologist Gabriel Miremont, is in Palermo near Plaza Italia, with exhibits highlighting her dichotomously sainted and hated rise. The museum’s restaurant serves up delicious fusion cuisine and is a destination of its own, earning recommendations from de Luca and Noguera, in addition to myself.

Almost every restaurant in Buenos Aires is gay-friendly. Berger favors the parrilla or steakhouse Don Zoilo, near where he lives in Villa Crespo, to meet friends. Across town, in historic San Telmo, de Luca recommends Pride Café, “especially on Sundays when they host a gay brunch.” De Luca raves online aboutAy Cariño, saying, “It truly is a hidden gem not many know about. It stands out for its openness, full inclusiveness, and welcoming service for all letters of the LGBTIQ+ acronym.”

Sure, New York is the city that never sleeps, but Porteños are among the world’s most nocturnal creatures. As a night owl myself, I am in my element here. Clubbing doesn’t get going until way past midnight. With three dance floors, Club Amerika is the city’s largest dance venue, also popular with young straight people for the music. Historic Contramano in Recoleta opened 40 years ago after the military dictatorship’s collapse. Small, intimate, and always fun, Glam is one of my favorites, just blocks from my old Barrio Norte apartment. There’s also superhot Club69 in Palermo’s Niceto Bar, which de Luca says “remains an icon” for the community. Not so much a gay space, we both also recommend Milión in Recoleta, one of the city’s most beautiful resto-bars, in a stunning garden terrace mansion. One of the most breathtaking bars in the city is Salon 23, on the Palacio Barolo rooftop.

OK, so Berger, de Luca, and I can tell you where the boys are. For the girls especially, there’s Rose, a weekly party at Frida Club in the Palermo Hollywood neighborhood.

What makes Buenos Aires especially unique are all the other kinds of LGBTQ gathering spots mixing restaurants, bars, and culture, day or night. De Luca recommends café and cultural space MariCafe in Palermo—it has a drag brunch, bookstore, and other peripatetic offerings. Feliza is another spot for festivals and musical performances. Its name a linguistic gender play, La Greco in San Telmo offers daytime and nighttime activities. Every traveler should visit Casa Brandon, an LGBTQ community center, with events for everyone.

Buenos Aires once had a few LGBTQ-focused hotels, including Spanish chain Axel. Now, head to El Lugar Gay in San Telmo, a men’s-only venue. Still, almost every Buenos Aires hotel is gay-friendly, and de Luca mentions working closely with French Accor and Spanish NH chains. The LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce created a Todos Bienvenidos or All Welcome program on top of the city’s own Buenos Aires Convive diversity awareness program. I have never had an issue, and all major chains as well as the Small Hotels Argentina group and local Amerian chain make for excellent choices. I’d also recommend quietly luxurious Legado Mitico, owned by a gay couple, where I stayed in the Evita-themed First Lady room. The hotel with the most important gay history is Hotel Castelar where gay Spanish playwright Federico García Lorca lived in Room 207, now a mini-museum. There’s also a Turkish sauna that is like a step back in time to the 1920s.

As you get around, make sure to visit the LGBTQ subway station, Santa Fé–Carlos Jaúregui, on the yellow H Line, which honors a founder of Comunidad Homosexual Argentina. It’s at the intersection of Avenida Santa Fé and Avenida Pueyrredón, known for decades as the gay corner for cruising and its one-time concentration of gay venues.

I know you will fall in love with Buenos Aires, as I did myself on my very first visit nearly a quarter of a century ago. All you have to do is explore and leave yourself open to new experiences and people—whether it's your first time in the city or a return visit.

“The thing I like most about Buenos Aires is that it is a big city with a few places that are still a little hidden,” says Berger. “This is what I find the most charming.”

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