Guides

Vintage cocktail bars of Lisboa

Some Lisbon bars feel like they were built last year. These ones feel like they've always been there. Pavilhão Chinês with its five rooms of antique tin soldiers, Procópio behind an unmarked red door celebrating 50 years of jazz and political conversation, Foxtrot with its fireplace and snooker table running until 2am — these are the bars where the city's writers, intellectuals, and old guard have been drinking for decades. Save this guide for the night you want Lisbon to feel like Lisbon.

Unique cocktail bars of Lisboa

The cocktail bars locals send each other to. Nine-seat speakeasies, Basque-Italian cocktail dens, secret rooms tucked into Praça das Flores — every one of them small, distinctive, and the kind of place you didn't find on TikTok.

Wine bars of Lisboa

Old schools cafés of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires officially protects its most historically significant cafes under the "Bares Notables" designation — a government heritage program for places too culturally important to let disappear. There are over 70 of them, and most have been serving the same cortado and medialunas to the same neighborhood regulars for over a century. These aren't specialty coffee destinations — the coffee is fine, the atmosphere is the point. Order a submarino, take the window table, and stay as long and stay as long as you want. Nobody will rush you. **What to order:** cortado or submarino, medialunas, whatever's in the pastry case. **Neighborhoods:** _Monserrat, San Nicolás, Almagro, Balvanera, Recoleta._