If you plan to travel to Argentina and want a deep dive into the food and all that entails, you must contact Kevin Vaughn. For your pre-trip prep you can read his zine Matambre, and then while you are in Buenos Aires have him introduce you to the food and the people connected to it by booking his professional, no bull-shit, fringe tours at Devour Buenos Aires.
Kevin graciously asked me to translate a guest piece for Matambre written by Nadin Petrone about Galería Boston. Buenos Aires is full of Galerías and I am obsessed with walking through them. So this piece was a joy to translate and to learn more about one of the most frequented (for empanadas) yet overlooked architectural oddities and beauties of Buenos Aires. Nadin Petrone's photography is another must for anyone interested in Buenos Aires, check her IG, and read my translation of the piece on empanadas and the eclectic Galería Boston over at Matambre Mag.
Overlooked modernism and empanadas in the middle of Downtown
"My go-to place on Florida Street is the Galería Boston. As in many other old commercial galleries nearby, time stopped over 50 years ago. Some entrances are camouflaged among the more flashy windows of neighboring stores, leaving these large spaces forgotten, which penetrate the blocks and used to be populated by various stores. Just in the kilometer that the pedestrian street covers, there are 17 galleries and many more in the surrounding streets.
Just a few meters away, nearly right across the street, is the undisputed star of the block: the famous Galería Güemes, which astounds with its Art Nouveau style and its marble and bronze from the beginning of the twentieth century. In addition to its purely architectural attraction, it has the added flavor of a picturesque and somewhat improbable anecdote: it was the home of the writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and his pet, a seal pup that lived in the bathtub of his apartment.
In contrast, the Galería Boston, with its more modest charms, has yet to be discovered by many. Almost all of the interchangeable characters on the grooved letter-board at the entrance have fallen off. This board once displayed the stores' names on each of its three levels. Today, most of them have been vacant for years and nothing seems very inviting to passers-by.
It was inaugurated in the early 1960s, and its most valuable attribute, consisting of three large murals with figures in low relief, goes unnoticed. The author is a multifaceted Argentine artist named Héctor Julio Páride Bernabó, known as "Carybé," a nickname he picked up in Brazil, where he was more prolific and recognized than in his homeland.
As an analogy with the DNA of the City of Buenos Aires, "La Güemes," reminiscent of European constructions, coexists with "La Boston," which, despite its Saxon name and its modern architecture, celebrates the Latin American essence on its walls.
Despite its artistic heritage, many visit the Galería Boston for some highly praised empanadas made using a recipe from the province of Catamarca. La Cocina is located on the central floor and has long ceased to be an open secret among workers in the area, thanks in part to the renewed boom of vintage bars and cafés on social media. "
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