Las Violetas

This guide to Las Violetas in Buenos Aires opens with a wooden plank on trestles, stacked with warm medialunas, set out on the sidewalk of a grand 1884 confitería. It traces how the original owner ran the place into bankruptcy and fled the country in the late 1990s, leaving staff to keep baking without pay, and how eleven restaurant owners later pooled their money to buy the wreck. They special-ordered the granite mosaic flooring and hand-carved the tulip lamp shades to match the originals.