Café Tortoni

Cafe Tortoni is a cafe on Avenida de Mayo 825, Buenos Aires (Argentina ). It was opened in 1858 by the French immigrants Touan and after the local " Tortoni " on the Boulevard des Italiens, Paris, named.

History

Cafe Tortoni was originally located at the intersection of Avenida Rivadavia and Esmeralda Street. The building in which the Tortoni is today, was formerly the Templo Escocés (Scottish stamp). In 1880 it moved to its present location, the entrance was located on Av. Rivadavia. 1898, the facade was renovated by the architect Alejandro Christophersen and moved the entrance on Avenida de Mayo. Shortly after it was sold to the French Celestino Curutchet.

In the basement of the house in 1926 La Peña ( a meeting place where folklore / Nueva Cancion is played and to food and drinks offered ) opened. 1943 this meeting was dissolved. Among his visitors were, inter alia, Alfonsina Storni, Baldomero Fernández Moreno, Juana de Ibarbourou, Arthur Rubinstein, Ricardo Vines, Roberto Arlt, José Ortega y Gasset, Jorge Luis Borges, Molina Campos and Benito Quinquela Martín.

The cafe itself was a meeting place for politicians like Lisandro de la Torre and Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear, famous Argentines such as Carlos Gardel and Juan Manuel Fangio and international figures such as Albert Einstein, Federico García Lorca, Hillary Clinton, Robert Duvall and King Juan Carlos I. of Spain.

The basement is currently used by jazz and tango musicians also will find book reviews and sealing competitions instead.

The coffee house has preserved its interior fin-de- siècle from the early days, also there are pool tables and you can play dominoes and darts.