ARMCHAIR TRAVELLER ARMCHAIR TRAVELLER

William Boyd sends. . .

Six Postcards from Buenos Aires

The Alvear Palace It’s a long way from London to Buenos Aires: many thousands of miles and a good 15 hours when you travel via Sao Paolo and your plane is diverted to another airport because of fog. But when you arrive in Buenos Aires the disconcerting feeling you have is that you are still in Europe — particularly when you check in to the Alvear Palace, one of the great hotels of the world, all marble, towering ceilings and chandeliers — Ritz-like, Georges-Cinq-like. Old Europe and its traditions live on here — grand, confident, over-staffed, supremely comfortable. As do old Europe’s prices: outside everything is five times cheaper.

Recoleta Normally I’m not drawn to graveyards but this ornate crowded necropolis (not far from the Palace) outrivals anything I’ve ever seen. All graveyards replicate cities in their own morbid way (with their streets and alleys, blocks and grid-systems — your last address, after all). In Recoleta the tombs are like elaborate minihouses — neo-Gothic, classic, brutalist, streamline moderne — and apparently some areas of the cemetery are more upmarket than others and families squabble for realestate. I dutifully sought out Eva Peron’s grave as all visitors to Recoleta must (and was dutifully let down by its modesty) but it is the graveyard’s architecture itself that demands a serious tour.

Jorge Luis Borges Borges is to Buenos Aires what James Joyce is to Dublin. If you’ve read Borges and love him (as I do) you wander this enormous city seeking his traces. I went to see where he first lived (in a district called Palermo), stood at the famous junction of streets where he said Buenos Aires was invented (one of the more bathetic experiences of the trip, it has to be said: think run-of-the-mill urban crossroad with traffic lights). Borges was brought to life more by the cafes he frequented: the Café

Tortoni — huge, crowded, pillared — very 19th century. My preference was La Beila, like a large genteel brasserie — very popular with middle-aged ladies at tea time — one could almost be in provincial France. At Borges’s regular table there is a commemorative, very realistic, life-size wooden statue of him sitting there. It took little persuading to have my photograph taken alongside him: it looks uncannily as if we are enjoying a chat over our coffees. La Beila also serves the most delicious toasted sandwiches in the world.

Meat Don’t go to Buenos Aires if you’re a vegetarian — I’ve never, ever eaten meat like the meat I ate in Buenos Aires. An Argentine actor friend, Gregory Dayton, took me to two local parillas — grills — where we were served charcoal-grilled cuts of meat on wooden boards, accompanied by salads. In the second parilla our joint of meat was carved with the side of a spoon to signal its unbelievable tenderness. These were local places, amazingly cheap and relaxed. At the other end of the scale I ate my way through a five-course meat meal at the legendary La Cabana (one of Hemingway’s favourite restaurants) with a different wine for each course. Argentine wines — another long and delectable story.

Tango

It is a cliché but the tango is both something special in Buenos Aires and somewhat omnipresent. You hear the music constantly, you see it danced on street corners and there are large tango clubs (for tourists) that do manage to deliver something of the dance’s unique melancholy frisson. I went to a small bar late at night in San Telmo called Bar Sur — there were only 20 of us watching the dancers as we drank and ate. The dancers were old, the guitars badly tuned, but it was unmistakeably authentic. San Telmo is the antiques district of Buenos Aires and there is a sprawling and spectacular flea market there on Sunday. Also one of the world’s great bars, the Bar Dorrego. Portenos Buenos Aires is huge, a bit like London in that respect, and its 19th century scale and splendour still exists. You have to travel long distances to reach districts with their own charm and character. I liked San Telmo, I liked the Palermos — Palermo Chico and Palermo Hollywood, where the media folk hang out. La Boca is a slightly themed shanty town, full of bars and clubs, reputedly where tango was invented, but its vivid and visible poverty (luridly painted walls and corrugated iron roofs) does remind you, in this strangely European city, that you are on another continent, in the Third World. When I went to the famous Plaza de Mayo there was a small demonstration of veterans from the Falklands war. Today the Portenos (as Buenos Aireans call themselves) are unfailingly charming and friendly. Almost a quarter of a century on, these vets were now middle-aged men, all Indians with strong boney faces, drawn from Argentina’s impoverished northern provinces. They had been neglected, they complained, they had no pensions, the wounded had no state support, their pointless sacrifice had been forgotten. I joined the small queue and signed their petition. It seemed the right thing to do.

HOTELS OF THE WEEK

T he Alvear Palace Hotel Avenida Alvear 1891 (C1129AAA) Buenos Aires, Argentina Tel: +51 (0)11 4808 2100 info@alvearpalace.com

F our Seasons Hotel Buenos Aires Posadas 1086/88 (C1011ABB) Buenos Aires, Argentina Tel: + 54 (11) 4321 1200 www.fourseasons.com/buenosaires

William Boyd’s trip was organised by Cazenove & Loyd, Tel: +44 (0) 20 7384 2332; www.cazloyd.com

THE SPECTATOR13 May 2006 62
RESTAURANTS RESTAURANTS DEBORAH ROSS

Iwant to try a Russian restaurant in Clerkenwell called Potemkin. I just fancy it, I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s simply because it isn’t one of the usual ethnicities and neither is it the new British cooking thing — Canteen, Roast, National Dining Rooms, etc. — which is now taking over London so quickly that I sometimes find myself yearning for The Golden Egg, which never tried to reinvent oxtail but did do a mean gammon with pineapple ring. I ask my old friend Clive if he would like to come along. He says fine, ‘although I do hope there won’t be a pogrom’. I say if there is a pogrom, let’s hope it comes after we have eaten but before the bill arrives, because if there has to be a pogrom then this, surely, has to be the best time for one. Neither of us can recall the last time we went out for a Russian meal, although we can both recall Russian salad that used to come in a tin from Heinz, but I don’t think we need to go there. Heinz Russian salad was one of those things that managed to insult both Russians and salads everywhere. It was unique in that way. When we arrive at the appointed time, Potemkin isn’t quite what either of us expected. It has a very sleek, modern exterior and, on the ground level, what appears to be an über-hip designer bar. I don’t know why I didn’t expect this. Because I assume everything Russian will be dark and heavy and old and dusty and lumpen, and that’s just the women? I guess so. The restaurant proper is in the basement, though, and it is rather nice. Curious, but rather nice. Although small (only 34 covers) and the oddest shape ever —it’s like being in a hot, subterranean, bisected triangle — it’s quite rich without being overly or ostentatiously so: burgundy banquettes, burgundy walls; gilt-edged alcoves housing brightly coloured lacquerware vases. The owners are Russian, the chef is Russian and all the staff are Russian, so it’s the real thing rather than a nasty themed job. Potemkin was, as I understand it, a field marshal and Catherine the Great’s lover on the days when it wasn’t a horse, which I believe was every other Tuesday and some Friday afternoons. The service is, initially, brisk. In fact, it is too brisk. It’s sit down, here is the menu, are you ready to order? I’d planned to have an aperitif. I’d planned to have one of their award-winning Bloody Marys, or one of their numerous flavoured vodkas, but everything’s moving too quickly. I later understand why, when a large party of around 20 men in suits arrive and take up most of the restaurant. They appear to be bankers or something and

every so often one of them stands up, calls for hush — which means we all have to go quiet — and then gives a little speech about how well they have done lately and how great they all are generally. This makes me want to clink my own glass, call for hush and say, ‘I’ve got nothing to say, but still. See how annoying this is?’ I’m guessing the restaurant wants to get Clive and me up and running before they are otherwise too occupied with this table. This is fair enough, but I hate that table all the same. I am generally great too, by the way. Ask anybody. So, brisk service, but also engaged and interested. Our own waitress, who is not heavy, dark, dusty or lumpen, and is even possibly beautiful, with lovely blonde hair and fabulous cheekbones, is keenly informative. When we order a bottle of red Georgian wine (Tamada Saperavi, £16) she says, ‘Ah, Stalin’s favourite.’ Clive says this can’t be the easiest way to sell something. Clive says he can’t imagine going to a German restaurant and being told, ‘Ah, Hitler’s favourite.’ But our waitress has enough charm to get away with it, plus she is splendidly helpful. Clive is allergic to nuts. Very, very allergic. If he eats anything even vaguely nutty he has to jab himself and get to a hospital within 30 minutes or he has

‘It’s the press following David Cameron’s new low-emission car.’

had it. But the waitress takes all his crossexaminations well and is happy to keep returning to the kitchen to make further inquiries. I think that if Clive saw a cashew coming at him from one direction and a Cossack from the other, there is no saying which way he would go. Anyway, on to the food. First, the bread. There is a charge for the bread (75p), which is a little bit naughty, but it is good and interesting bread. There’s an excellent, dense, sour rye bread and one with raisins in that is almost cake. Next, the menu, which not only goes way beyond borscht and potatoes but is eccentrically conversational in tone. For example, the starter of Selyodchka (cured herring with marinated onions, new potatoes and dill) is described as ‘a dish Russians die for’. Really? Better have it then. To be honest, I’m not sure I’d die for it, but it’s jolly good all the same. The herring is sweetly subtle, the onions are a perfect, zingy accompaniment and the potatoes are beautifully warm and generously bathed in fresh dill. Clive has the chicken roulet, a chicken fillet rolled around plain and tomato omelettes and served with a beetroot and horseradish sauce. He says it all ‘works surprisingly well’. Most starters come in at £4 to £5, which we think very good value. My main of Sashlyk Po-Potemkinsky (£16) is chicken marinated for 24 hours in wine and spices, then pan-fried and served with peppers and a tomato and coriander sauce. The chicken is excellent, tender and aromatic, but I could do without the peppers, which are just, well, slabs of pepper laid around the plate. And pepper doesn’t have a lot to recommend it at the best of times. Possibly it has more to recommend it than Russian salad but, as we know, that really isn’t saying a lot. Clive, though, is perfectly content with his duck breasts served with cranberry jelly and red cabbage (£13.50). ‘Very moist, very succulent,’ he says, ‘and very nut-free.’ For pudding we both have the vodka-doused fresh fruit salad, which is refreshing and just the ticket. Potemkin is not only small but also very busy. Booking is essential: we saw quite a few people being turned away. Potemkin is an interesting diversion (even without pogroms and heavy-duty nut incidents) in a cool space with charming staff and, while the portions can be a little on the small side, not overpriced at all. The wine, I should add, was lovely. I wouldn’t trust Stalin with a lot, but I would with a wine list.

Potemkin, 144 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1; tel: 020 7278 6661.

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