Last month, as part of Buenos Aires’ annual Día del Café Notable, a two-day festival called Feca – backslang for “cafe” – saw tastings, barista training sessions and themed tours take over the capital’s bares notables. These corner bar-cafes are the quintessential Buenos Aires institution – anything from 50 to 160 years old, they have architectural value, and have been the sites of key cultural moments.

This year Feca paid tribute to Tortoni, which is celebrating its 160th birthday. Tortoni is a beauty, for sure, but it’s also mobbed by tourists, and I wanted to unearth some of the less famous cafes.

I took a bus to La Flor de Barracas, a beautiful, early 20th-century cafe just west of touristy San Telmo, to meet manager Carlos Cantini, an erudite coffee aficionado.

“I think the special thing about our bars is down to tango,” he explained. “This was a city once full of single men, mainly immigrants, sharing rooms. In the bar they could learn Spanish as well as lunfardo [the local slang], meet women, and dance.”

The bares notables are redoubts of authentic porteño (Buenos Aires) life, as well as nostalgia-perfumed spaces in which to reflect, people watch, fall in love. Visiting them will typically take you to barrios well away from the made-over honeypots of Palermo, Recoleta and downtown. Go on the bus, sample native aperitifs and digestifs like Amargo Obrero, Hesperidina and Legui, and chat to the owners. They’ll be delighted to meet you.

Café Margot, Boedo (est 1904)

With its checkerboard floor, high ceilings, and flowery fileteado signage, this is a beautiful corner cafe, formerly called the Trianon. Past punters include boxer José María “el Mono” Gatica and socialist politician Alfredo Palacios. Apparently, president Juan Perón used to drop by to pick up a turkey escabeche (a vinegar and paprika marinade) sandwich, the house speciality, still made to a secret recipe.

Boedo – both the barrio and street – have deep tango associations: Homero Manzi’s beautiful song Sur opens with the lines, “San Juan and Boedo, and the whole sky… the corner of the blacksmith, mud and pampa”. The bar’s current name, Margot – adopted in 1993 – honours a celebrated tango by Celedonio Flores, about a girl who sells her soul for the high life. The smaller back room has air-con and there’s a terraced area on the street.

Local sights Sculpture trail at San Juan and Independencia; Boedo and San Juan – the corner mentioned in the song.
• Avenida Boedo 857, losnotables.com.ar

Café Olimpo, Monte Castro (est 1950)

Foreign visitor numbers to Monte Castro, a tranquil, low-slung, middle-class barrio 13km west of the city centre, must be no more than 10 a year. Cafe Olimpo, named after a football club that used to play on waste ground opposite – when BA was a tapestry of single-storey houses and fields – is an airy, brightly lit joint that pays homage not to tango or football, but to car mechanics. At least, its walls are adorned with old registration plates, gears, hubcaps and headlights. Owner-managers Gustavo and Horacio say they started doing food a couple of years ago to keep the place open. Tango turns twice a month and regular barbecues draw in locals, many of whom are fans of Vélez Sarsfield, a once-minor football club that now routinely wins leagues and cups.

Local sights Vélez Sarsfield’s and All Boys’ football stadiums.
• Irigoyen 1491, on Facebook

La Flor de Barracas, Barracas (est 1907)

Managed by cafe addict and academic Carlos Cantini and his family, this is a lovely spot in the neighbourhood that provided the moody backdrops for Pino Solanas’s magical-realism tango film Sur. Food was always the strength of La Flor, and the pastas don’t disappoint. The shelves behind the bar heave with ancient brandy bottles and the patio is perfect for a private lunch or a smoke. Migrants from Haiti and Senegal live upstairs, making this the sort of milieu the bar’s earliest customers would recognise: it opened at the peak of mass immigration to Argentina. Go to La Flor for a long lunch, or to enjoy one of its regular arts workshops.

Local sights El Aguila coffee and chocolate warehouse, Calle Darquier (used in Solanas’s Sur), mosaics on houses in Calle Lanín, Chau Che Clú for tango milongas and live music.
• Suárez 2095, laflordebarracas.com

La Farmacia, Flores (est 1910)

This old pharmacy is the pride of Flores, formerly a district where wealthy porteños built their summer houses, and the place where Jorge Mario Bergoglio – aka Pope Francis – was born and grew up. Turned into a bar in 2000, the interior is all old photos and dim lighting; among the medicine bottles is a decent stock of vermouths, digestifs and other tipples.

Local sights San Jose de Flores Basilica; 531 Membrillar, the house where the pope grew up; Huracán’s football stadium.
• Avenida Directorio 2400, on Facebook

El Federal, San Telmo (est 1864)

Thanks to its antiquity, central location, imposing bar (with beautiful stained-glass arch) and joyously cluttered interior, this is one of the bares notables most visited by tourists as well as locals, who’ll enjoy a picada (a wooden platter of cheese and meats) with a jug of clericó (Argentinian punch). The venue has been a brothel, a dive bar for gauchos and a general store; excavations unearthed cadavers of those who died in yellow fever outbreaks in 1871-2. Among its many VIP clients was Roberto Goyeneche, arguably the greatest tango singer of the postwar era.

Local sights Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Plaza Dorrego, San Telmo market.
• Carlos Calvo 599, losnotables.com.ar

Tokio, Villa Santa Rita (est 1930)

A recent newspaper article lamented Villa Santa Rita’s lack of public spaces. Hence the vital need for Bar Tokio – named after a street ( it has no obvious Japanese pretensions). On the wall is a copy of Velázquez’s The Triumph of Bacchus – aka Los Borrachos, or The Drunkards – as well as football pendants, jockeys’ shirts and photos of Maradona and local blues legend Pappo. Staffed by the youngest members of the proprietor’s family, this is a much-loved lunch stop; try the tripe or lentil stew.

Local sights None, really.
• Tokio 2085, on Facebook

El Faro, Villa Urquiza (est 1931)

This handsome cafe in a barrio on the north-western edge of the capital – but only 25 minutes by train from preening Palermo “Soho” – is known across BA for its live tango gigs, held every Friday. The walls and shelves are decorated with Martini ads, tango legends, old signs and models and pictures of lighthouses – the faros of the bar’s name. Note, too, the white-on-black letterboard, a standard feature of hipster venues, only here it’s used because inflation dictates frequent price changes. El Faro won a prize for its milanesa (schnitzel) last year, so try one with mashed potatoes.

Local sights Sunderland and Sin Rumbo tango clubs, Parque Sarmiento.
• Avenida de los Constituyentes 4099, on Facebook

El Símbolo, Almagro (est 1954)

Barman-owner Carlos says the opening of a Café Martinez – an Argentinian chain – next door is threatening the existence of this lovely, narrow, grungy bar on Avenida Corrientes. But the food here – omelettes, milanesas and revuelto gramajo (a mishmash of chips, eggs, ham, peas and peppers) – is heartier and cheaper. Carlos also has a good range of vermouths and wines, as well as beer. Close to the former Abasto market, a stunning art deco building now housing a mall, this is a great bolthole for escaping the clamour of one of BA’s most commercial barrios.

Local sights Carlos Gardel house museum, Abasto building.
• Avenida Corrientes 3787, on Facebook

Miramar, San Cristóbal (est 1950)

Some bars have had to change to survive. Miramar, once a barrio bar known for hosting lunchtime bandoneón (button-accordion) sessions by maestro Julio Pane, and for its Spanish-influenced food, was refurbished a few years ago and is now a rather smart-looking restaurant. It has conserved the original furniture and paintings of porteño legends, and you can still see the wear on the floor tiles close to the tin bar – where regulars once quaffed, hour after hour. The food is still excellent – chorizo-laced Spanish omelettes, and locally rare treats such as rabbit and frog’s legs – and the wines carefully chosen. Before dinner, try a Cynar (artichoke liqueur) with soda. A really lovely local eatery.

Local sights Museo de Doña Petrona (“queen of Argentinian cuisine”, local chef and recipe book writer); British-built beaux arts-style Constitución railway terminus; Congress Palace.
• Avenida San Juan 1999

El Motivo, Villa Pueyreddón (est 1959)

This tiny, totally out of the way neighbourhood caff is named after a famous tango song about yet another partying woman who sells her soul and pays the price of plainness and solitude. Crooner Carlos Gardel looks down from the wall, a single fan spins slowly, sepia hues predominate … Try a pasta frola (jam tart) with a cortado coffee in a glass.

Local sights Artigas 3246: former home of writer Julio Cortázar.
• Avenida Salvador María del Carril 2401, no website

The trip was provided by Journey Latin America, which organises private and group itineraries to Buenos Aires from £1,506pp. Read Carlos Cantini’s blog (Spanish only) at cafecontado.com. For further information on notable cafes, see turismo.buenosaires.gob.ar