Places to Smoke in Buenos Aires

This post will probably inaugurate a new section of its own in yanquimike.com.ar

Now, you may smoke...or you may not. However, you probably have friends or visitors that DO smoke and occasionally you are faced with the prospect of entertaining them.

For exactly those occasions you will need a list of not only smoker-friendly places (e.g. sidewalk tables and the assorted gas chambers that are available) but also places where YOU, as non-smokers, would be willing to suffer the slings and arrows of second-hand carcinogens in relative comfort.

That having been said...let me recommend the best place I have found so far:

Big Mamma
Juramento 2156
Belgrano
4781-0093

There are others, of course...and I expect a tremendously grand list from all of you that meets or exceeds the comfort provided by the unfortunately renamed Big Mamma's (it's been there for years but I can't recall it's former name. )

However, I have hesitated to mention any of those places because none, in my experience, remotely resembles someplace in which smokers and non-smokers could reasonably co-exist for the time that it takes to quaff a cocktail.

Springtime weather is one thing. But what about the heat or what about the rain??? Not to mention when winter finally arrives!

The big gal's place is exactly a lado del Museo Historico Sarmiento and more or less across the street from another fine museum and private garden that simply must be visited...en pleno Belgrano.

It's not hidden at all and is very recognizable with it's glass and steel architecture nestled in a bit of a garden behind a fairly traditional gate.

The air conditioning is...and has always been...some of the best in town. Not only that but there is no gas-chamber effect. The seating for fumadores is up and at the back of the joint resembling something from before prohibition. That should comfort both your smoking guests and yourselves...no matter what your predilection is.

Plenty of light and air and greenery.

On a warm day, such as it was today, try your hand at instructing them as to your exacting method of the preparation of one of their fine melon daiquiris while you ensconce yourself in a deep leather sofa with the ones you care for.

Try it...then send me your recommendations for other places in which smokers are allowed to harmoniously exist with others as in days of old. We will post them all.