Alvear Palace Hotel

Avenida Alvear cuts through Recoleta, the district of French-style mansions and embassies that gave Buenos Aires its reputation as the Paris of South America, and Alvear Palace Hotel, the grand hotel of the city, opened on it in 1932. It has 207 rooms and suites, a French restaurant that has been a reference in the city for decades, and a roof terrace looking over the Recoleta rooftops to the river.

History

The hotel was conceived in the 1920s, when Argentina was among the richest countries in the world and Recoleta its most fashionable address, by Rafael de Miero, who wanted a palace hotel on the European model. The avenue, and so the hotel, is named after Torcuato de Alvear, the first mayor of Buenos Aires, who laid out much of the district in the 1880s. Construction took most of a decade and the hotel opened in 1932, in the depression that followed the collapse of the beef and grain export boom. It kept its standing through every cycle that followed, and for ninety years it has been the address of visiting heads of state, performers and business delegations in Buenos Aires. Ownership is still Argentine, and the hotel is the flagship of a small group that includes the Alvear Icon in Puerto Madero.

Architecture and design

The building is a Beaux-Arts block of the kind that lines the avenue, with a stone facade, a mansard roof and tall windows. The interiors follow the French taste of the period: Louis XV and Louis XVI furniture, Empire-style chandeliers, marble floors and wood panelling in the public rooms. The ground floor holds a sequence of salons used for teas, receptions and events, and the gallery along Avenida Alvear is lined with shop windows. Renovations have kept this vocabulary rather than replacing it.

Rooms and suites

The 207 rooms and suites are furnished in the same French manner, with silk fabrics, period furniture and marble bathrooms, and each is attended by a butler. Suites take up a large share of the inventory, with the largest on the upper floors facing the avenue. Among luxury hotels in Buenos Aires it is the one whose rooms look as they did in photographs from the 1930s.

Dining

La Bourgogne, the hotel's French restaurant, was opened by the chef Jean-Paul Bondoux and has been one of the city's most respected tables for decades. L'Orangerie, a glass-roofed winter garden off the lobby, serves breakfast, afternoon tea and a Sunday brunch that is an institution among Recoleta families. The Lobby Bar and the Roof Bar on the top floor complete the offer.

Wellness

The spa on the upper floors has treatment rooms, a fitness centre and an indoor pool under glass.

Weddings and events

The hotel has ten event spaces for up to 400 guests, from the ground-floor salons to the roof terrace, and hosts weddings, galas, corporate dinners and conferences. It is the setting of choice in Buenos Aires for formal weddings in the French manner, with the salons and gallery used in sequence for ceremony, reception and dinner.

Location

Avenida Alvear runs for a few blocks through Recoleta, from Plaza San Martín de Tours to the Recoleta cemetery, past the French embassy, the Palacio Duhau and the city's main luxury boutiques. Ten minutes on foot covers the cemetery where Eva Perón is buried, the Recoleta cultural centre and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, the city airport, lies about six kilometres off, and Ministro Pistarini International Airport at Ezeiza some 35 kilometres to the south-west.