Las Violetas

Las Violetas is a stylish place. With murals, stained-glass canopies and rows of delicious-looking cakes on display, it’s obviously somewhere which attracts a certain type of clientele. When I visit, on a Sunday afternoon, it’s full of noisy families and groups of ladies on what could be their annual meetup over coffee and cakes.

Las Violetas is a Confiteria, that is to say it makes and sells cakes, as well as offering a large cafe ares to have a cup of coffee with your cake, and like most Confiterias in Buenos Aires is not a place to eat or drink, rather a place to talk. Nobody is rushing, the waiters included, and the high ceilings and sunlight streaming in from outside give it an open and welcoming feeling as witnessed by the fact it has been in business on the same corner in Almagro for over 125 years.

It may not be obvious from the surroundings (which underwent a major reconstruction at the end of the 1990s), but La Violetas played a role in the struggle against the Dirty War when it was a regular meeting place for the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo in the 1970s.

I must confess that it’s not really my kind of place. Maybe a little too bright, a little too neat, a little too elegant for me to feel totally at ease, however Las Violetas is the sort of place that I’m glad exists, proving that not everything in this world has to change and be replaced, that some ideas just work well and can stay that way.

Las Violeta: Avenida Rivadavia 3899
Subte: Castro Barros, Line A

This page is part of a series examining the Notable Bars of Buenos Aires.