A lot of noise from the good is coming together and with great force from several windows of restaurants and bars of a specific area of the city of Buenos Aires that (fortunately) does not have to Palermo as first name or a New York neighborhood of surname. The ring that groups them is about 7 x 7 blocks, and there are only 5 hours of silence between the premises that earliest opens and the last to close, at 4 am (weekends). Many numbers to say it is an area where many things happen at the same time, all the time, all very close to everything.
This group of restaurants, bars and cafes occupy much of the district of Chacarita, framed by four avenues: Álvarez Thomas, Dorrego, Forest and Federico Lacroze. At first, this history of gastronomic gentrification not much of particular: small, young and enterprising locals are located in peripheral areas to the most established gastronomic areas (basically, Palermo), where the rent is cheaper and the Offer of smaller premises. However, something bigger happens in this neighborhood, which is not seen at first sight in a search in Google Maps, but it feels going to these places, or at least visiting their inastagrams. There is a common energy that is shared: that of collaboration and fellowship. They call each other “neighbours”, and they are not seen as competition but as complements. As Martin Auzmendi says, one of the owners of the Vermutería force: “If the neighborhood grows, it grows for everyone.”
And that’s what they’re doing together. There is nothing that one more to people than a common enemy. And this story also has it: the crisis, which is best dealt with by the Union. “We understand that we do not compete among ourselves, but we build better links to get ahead altogether” says Juanma Bidegain, one of the 3 partners that has HEADQUARTERS, a bar that opened relatively recently and focuses on giving a washed face whisky, with pop UPS, DJs and cocktails fresh in a bar that is filled every weekend, commanded by Ani Varela. These links are real. On the one hand, they share suppliers and orders and even self-cater. Both the cooktop and the force, for example, buy products in Pig Chico, a boutique butchery that specializes in very good cuts and pork elaborations. “In small pig we make the sausages, we lend the vacuum machine, and give us meat that they spare to reuse in the restaurant, and that nothing is lost,” says Mica Najmanovich, one of the owners of the restaurant stove, the doors closed on Alvarez Thomas, who pushes from day one this neighborhood collaboration. More examples? In the force they buy the bread from wild Bakery, another young undertaking that is there right in the periphery of the ghetto, the girls of glad are followed to eat with Charlone 101 and vice versa, in SEAT they have a special drink with vermouth of the force , which both tout fervently, stove cooked guest in HEADQUARTERS, in communal warehouse have the vermouth pulled, rejoices also sells it, and so on. As if this were not enough, they are also recommended: “If the stove is full, I recommend to those who ask for a reservation to go to eat at Georgies, and if they come tourists who want to go for a drink after dinner, I send it to HEADQUARTERS, it’s a bit of a round trip” , says Mica Najmanovich. Auzmendi says that in the force they do the same thing: “There is something basic to be neighbors, to visit, to know, to recommend.” And he’s right. That the proximity to Palermo does not confuse, at the end of the day we are in the heart of Chacarita, a well-hearted neighborhood, where fortunately still means something to be a good neighbor.
The Gastro ghetto of Chacarita: in this note:
