When Marina Furlanetto was offered a job as Hilo Galería’s head curator, she seized the opportunity to build a true community gallery that reflects her values. “I’m a busca, that’s what we call it in Argentina,” she says with a smile. “I’m all the time seeking; I’m a hustler, I’m a dreamer. I never wanted to be a gallerist, but when I found this place, I knew it was right.” Walking down avenue Raúl Scalabrini Ortíz in Palermo, you’ll almost certainly miss Hilo if you’re not already looking for it. A subtly marked door opens to what used to be a family home and a narrow set of stairs that leads to the gallery: a very bohemian, multi-story complex full of contemporary art and cozy, welcoming energy. “People come here to be refreshed, to see new things and new artists,” she says. “They come here to believe again a little bit in art.” As a gallerist and curator in Buenos Aires, where the art market is relatively small, Furlanetto believes that struggle is what unites the porteño art community. “If we’re in this business, it’s because we’re passionate about it. And we’re struggling—with money, with the government—we’re all trying to float, to swim... It’s not a competitive struggle. It’s a good one.” At Hilo, whether it comes to selling art or commissioning artists to work in her space, Furlanetto connects deeply to the pieces that surround her. “Art is about connecting with your body and yourself. It has to be something that you look at with your heart and it makes you feel happy. It’s like falling in love,” she says. “As a gallerist, I see the soul of the [artist]. It’s kind of like being a psychologist. I try to get inside the mind of the artist; sometimes I see things that they don’t even see.”

For German Torres, Salvaje's head baker with over a decade of experience, the act of breadmaking is an emotional release. “In bread more than in cooking, there is a feeling that goes inside,” he says. “The bread is brighter or darker from the outside depending on if you’re feeling sad or happy. The baker should have some sensitivity to the bread—it doesn’t matter if you know the recipe, you have to touch the dough. More than anything, I teach our bakers here what to do with their hands. It is like therapy.” His connection and devotion to this process is edible. Our table overflows with a bounty of loaves; the purplish one with walnuts and the subtlest sourness is a standout. Unlike other bakers who use a generic white flour, Torres uses red and purple corn flours, native to Argentina. Under his care, Salvaje creates a superior product that nourishes the community and expands existing ideas about Argentinian baking. It’s from these distinctions that their loyal following has bloomed. As is increasingly true in cities around the world, it’s difficult to find hand-baked bread in Buenos Aires—the really nutritious kind that’s made with whole, fermented grains and locally sourced flours. In the Palermo neighborhood, however, those in the know go to Salvaje. There, customers watch from the street as bakers on the second floor knead dough and slice crusts in an open space above the busy neighborhood. On the ground floor, those same customers will find Torres, Martin Ortíz, and Rodrigo Corona—Salvaje’s three owners, old childhood friends now all in their early thirties. “We are here everyday,” Ortíz says. “We know the names of the customers, we know the names of their dogs, we know what they like. It’s a community.”

Opened in 2018, this new Belgrano neighborhood spot presents a curious mix of nostalgia, comfort, and unmistakable coolness, much like the city it calls home. “I tried to make a place where you feel comfortable no matter where you come from or how you’re dressed,” says chef and owner Narda Lepes. “The waitresses who work here know the people who come every day. It feels like an aunt that’s taking care of you, that home-y thing.” The restaurant is as much about feeling good as it is about pushing comfort zones, however, as Lepes is on a mission to get porteños eating a whole variety of foods she claims they normally wouldn’t. Years of working in France learning Japanese cuisine and later hosting a travel television series about food around the world have influenced Lepes’s cooking and lifestyle, encouraging her to creatively highlight Argentinian ingredients in all different ways at the restaurant. Meat, specifically beef, is a cornerstone of the Argentinian diet, and Lepes would never try to change that; she simply believes that it can be consumed better—that is, purchased from local producers and served with vegetables. She uses local, organic, seasonal vegetables and refuses to waste food, repurposing every part of an ingredient whenever possible. "Sometimes you eat good and sometimes you don’t; it should just be balanced.” And the meals at Narda Comedor certainly are: simply marinated tofu with fresh green onion, morcilla sausage and cauliflower purée, pork belly bibimbap, and a dulce de leche dessert satisfy deeply. “Here, you eat a whole dish, but you feel good and you can still do work after," she says. "Eating good feels good—come rico hace bien.”

After 10 years of living between São Paolo, Paris, Antwerp, Milan, and London, fashion designer Paula Selby Avellaneda felt it was time to return home and lay down her Argentinian roots. “Everything you see in fashion abroad is really structured, but here it’s still in its beginning stages,” Avellaneda says. “It’s really fresh and undeveloped; you can kind of make your own path.” With its neon-tinted windows and racks covered in beaded, flowing gowns, Avellaneda’s boutique, House of Matching Colours, doesn’t go unnoticed. Situated a block from the botanic gardens in a sleepy, residential neighborhood, the shop gives the street its requisite Buenos Aires edge. Known for mixing her embroidered dresses and wrinkled silk pieces with tough outerwear like leather jackets, Avellaneda explores this same juxtaposition in her work. “It’s something beautiful that’s not perfect, and I really relate that to the city, which is all a bit surreal, a bit rock, a bit aggressive, a bit unexpected.” For a while before opening HOMC, Avellaneda thought she wanted to own a massive clothing line with a global reach, but one attempt at growing a larger brand rapidly turned her off to the idea. “I felt like it was taking away from my ability to be spontaneous and creative,” she says. The antidote? A small, hyper-local boutique that specializes in made-to-measure garments, complete with an in-house studio up the back staircase. “We do everything here,” she says, proudly. And while the majority of shoppers in the city still opt for fast-fashion options like Zara, HOMC has tapped into what Avellaneda calls an emerging “young generation of people who don’t want to buy generic”—offering them something that is uniquely Argentinian. “As a country, we love to look abroad for inspiration, but I love more personal work,” Avellaneda says. “I prefer to look inside.”

Painter, fashion designer, and entrepreneur Flor Peña wants the women who wear her clothes to feel “cared for.” Seeing her wrapped in one of her airy, silken creations—dresses, kimonos, and scarves all painted and cut by hand—sold at her Palermo-based shop, Fabrics of Colours, it’s easy to understand what she means. “I work with silk textiles because of the sensation silk gives the skin,” she says. “It’s very soft; in the rock-and-roll of everyday life, it’s something more tender.” Though a native of Buenos Aires, Peña grew up visiting her family in the north of the country—the selva, or jungle—where the flowers and waterfalls inspired a lifelong love for nature. Now, as she creates pieces painted with intricate florals, vibrant colors, and earthy landscapes, Fabrics of Colours is more than just a clothing line; it’s an expression of her deepest love—the natural world—and her escape from the constant chaos of life in Argentina’s biggest city. “If I didn’t have my work I’d get crazy,” she says. “When I paint, there’s a silence in my movements. That’s the way that I’ve found I can grow in a city that is full of sounds.” It’s that inner sense of peace that Peña hopes to give customers who wear her delicate silks. Peña views herself as a feminist whose radicalism is less about struggle and tension and more about harmony. “My process with Fabrics has been a lot about accepting who I am and what I want to say,” she shares. “I like to make a space for women to come in and dress for themselves, not for others. Fabrics of Colours is completely linked with emotions; my paintings say more than my words can.”