Bond, James Bond

Skyfall is opening today and the world will be a better place! We are huge fans of Mr. James, and watched probably 1,500,000 times most of his films (with the exception of the ones starred by Roger Moore...). Our favorite actor is of course Sean Connery, but we think Daniel Craig is excellent in a much more modern version of the character.

We can't wait to see this film after the great reviews we heard from the avant-premiere guests.

Woven lives

We stumbled upon some pictures of Nate Berkus apartment in Chicago, a very nice space indeed, and we rediscovered a woven photograph by the late Fernando Bengoechea.

We met Fernando in New York many years ago (1998 maybe), he was working in a photo shoot for a friend of mine. We were both from Argentina, the exact same age, we were born in the same city and went to the same places as we were growing up. Talk about coincidences...He was a fantastic photographer and such a nice guy!

The woven photographs are painstakingly cut and then woven back together, adding this way a new depth and converting them into works of art.

You can visit the website for more information. His brother Marcelo is keeping Fernando's work alive.

www.fernandobengoechea.com

Tarquino, or how Recoleta got its groove back.

Not long ago, the only choice if you were in Recoleta and wanted a good drink was to go to any of the five star hotels in the area. We particularly liked the bar at the Hyatt Duhau on Avenida Alvear, but honestly after a while we needed a new place. And then, voila!, one day we discovered Tarquino, or maybe Tarquino discovered us, who knows.

We go there quite often, the bar area before the main room (a glass enclosed patio with a tree and everything) is our favorite place to hang out with friends. We usually end up having our meals there, a more casual setting for our taste. The menu is argentine, but very creative and full of surprises, so you can say good bye to the usual steak for one night.

Tarquino restaurant

Rodriguez Peña 1967

Ph. 6091.2160

What's cooking in San Telmo

The moment we walked into Aldo's we felt somehow puzzled. That familiar sensation, sort of a deja-vu, like walking into a place we've been before when it was very clear it was our first time there ever.

But then, as we sat in a very comfortable banquette, all of a sudden we realized the truth: it was like being in a first class restaurant in an international city (we know a thing or two about fine dining, darlings...). It didn't mean a pretentious this-place-looks-like-soho kind of thing at all. It was the real thing, a good looking first class space.

We were there for brunch, a big group really, and had a really good time as the food was tasty and the cocktails amazing. The wine selection, as expected, was superb. So were the good looking customers around us!

San Telmo is happening people...

Aldo's 

Moreno 372

Ph. 5291.2380

Le bourgeois gentilhomme

As you probably already know, Buenos Aires is a stylish place to visit and a wonderful city to live in. Trying to find a good store to get great clothes and shoes is another matter, as it could be a bit tough, especially if you come from a big city abroad.

But since we discovered El Burgues our peace of mind is guaranteed. We really like the chic store, the shoes are fantastic and the overall feeling of good quality makes us feel very very good.

A cut above the rest.

El Burgues
Gurruchaga 1638 & 1743
www.elburgues.com

Les surprises du Chef

San Telmo is one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Buenos Aires. It is where ancient buildings still stand today, after a few centuries of pollution and neglect. It became somehow a trendy place to buy an apartment, or open a store, a while ago but obviously it is not a location as commercial or high end as Palermo Soho or Recoleta...yet.

Property value went up, some cleaning (and also restoration) of the buildings is taking place so everything is looking much better than a few years back where garbage and squatters made the area a dangerous mess. Everything is improving, slowly but steadily.

Defensa street goes from Plaza de Mayo (of Evita fame) to the flea market in Plaza Dorrego, and all of  those blocks--too many!!!-- have become an open air market. Not as charming as one would hope but still alive and full of people. But unfortunately for all these tourists and locals alike, the question of where to have lunch (a good one) remained unanswered for many years.

But fortunately for us (we really love to eat well) there is a restaurant that changed our bad nourished Sundays in San Telmo: La Panaderia de Pablo, which opened some time ago thanks to the genius of famous chef Pablo Massey. In a wonderful space we had many great meals, always tasty, always argentine, always different. The patio is a fantastic option for those balmy days also, or if you like smoking and can't wait for that ciggy after your stake.

La Panaderia de Pablo
Defensa 269
San Telmo
Ph. 4331 6728

Morning glory

It is always a good thing to wake up in the morning. Especially in a beautiful sunny day, crisp and clear.

Buenos Aires in the summer could be extremely hot, humid and just horrible, so this morning we look up to the most wonderful blue sky and realize that the cool breeze from the South is blowing and soon we will be wearing sweaters again.

A little sample of our headquarters here in this beautiful, crazy, amazing and derelict city of Buenos Aires, where sometimes you forget you are not in Europe only to realize all of a sudden that you are deep in South America. In the background, Marina Frederking singing "I wanna hold your hand".

Viva la vida, let's celebrate life!.

I wanna hold your hand

We were invited to the launch party to celebrate the release of Marina Frederking's album, VERME.
It was a fantastic meeting of beautiful people, good food and open bar that lasted well into the wee hours.
Marina is an extremely talented and sexy artist, and in this album she is showing that a cover version is much, much more than a new performance of a popular song. She is indeed showing her true colors in all 10 tracks, really touching our souls with her warm voice. Our pick? "I wanna hold your hand"...

You can get an idea of how exciting the performance was clicking on this link
http://soundcloud.com/marinafrederking/sets/verme/

Marina Frederking
VERME

Patagonia, land of dreams

Everything started with a glass of red wine. Piero Incisa della Rocchetta (of the italian family behind Sassicaia, the great Super Tuscan wine) tasted in New York a fantastic Pinot Noir from a vineyard in Patagonia and he fell in love. It was a bottle of Humberto Canale by the danish winemaker Hans Vinding-Diers. Amazed by the quality of wines Hans was being able to make, he decided to start his own winery.

After a long and difficult search, he found a nearly abandoned vineyard in the Province of Rio Negro, with Pinot Noir vines that were over 70 years old (something unusual, because Argentina is land of Malbec). The funny thing is, the vineyard's owner initially refused to sell Piero the land. He told him that any commercial venture would fail. Piero respectfully ignored the prediction of bankruptcy and made a full commitment to follow his dream by buying the vineyard. Bodega Chacra was born.

The small vineyard from 1932 is the foundation for the winery. There are also parcels planted in 1955 and 1967, and another one with new plantings. Harvested manually, the vines are fermented naturally in large round cement vats with the minimum of intervention before being put into the oak barrels. Fermentation takes place naturally in the following six months, and the wines are then left undisturbed before being bottled without any filtration.

The results? Three of the most extraordinary and unique wines in Argentina: Chacra 32, Chacra 55 and Barda. They are easily the best Pinot Noir outside of Burgundy.

Andree Putman once said : "To not dare is to have already lost. We should seek out ambitious, even unrealistic projects…because things only happen when we dream".

We couldn't agree more.

Alrio

One of our latest projects is the sales showroom and model apartment for ALRIO, the most important real estate development in Argentina.

It comprises five residential buildings, office buildings, a shopping mall, a stadium, an open air Auditorium, a new park...the list goes on and on.

Alrio is located in Vicente Lopez, just outside the city, next to the river. A link between the upscale northern suburbs and Downtown Buenos Aires, this complex is really changing a whole area of the city and giving new meaning to the relationship between neighbours and their river, the big brown Rio de la Plata.

Alrio Sales Office

Avenida del Libertador 350, Piso 11

Vicente Lopez

I love cafe

After being in New York for so many years, we know a thing or two about coffee shops, cafes or whatever you like to call them. Considering the lack of space in Manhattan, they tend to be small, very small or tiny.

Downtown, where the charming ones we like are located, around Tribeca, Nolita and further east, we can find our favorite places to enjoy capuccinos and some sweets.

So, when a group of three friends decided to open the Argentine version of the kind of places we love (the Downtown cafe), it was very clear for us the way to go. Small? No problem, a few tables and chairs, a banquette, a couple of counters... We also had this idea of throwing a bit of London in the mix, especially because one of the owners spends part of the year in England with her polo player husband. And she adores London.

And then it was the color...Everything in the store under 3 feet high is painted red, everything above that is a shade of old parchment very shiny.

"I love cafe", that's the name of this magical place. Coffee to go and fresh food, good music, nice people in the heart of Recoleta. What's not to love?

Rodriguez Peña 1714

Buenos Aires

View from the Top

First there was the view. Then the apartment, in a nondescript building from the 70's. Nothing special about it, no old parquet or marble fireplaces this time...Just a boring and plain box...but what a view!. Overlooking Palermo park, the rose gardens, the Planetarium, the race tracks, the river...

The social area is on the 13th floor, upstairs the bedrooms and bathrooms, and then one more flight of stairs and voila!, you are in the barbecue room, the "quincho"...that sacred place where Argentines get together to enjoy the best beef in the World. Actually is more of a ritual, that ancestral thing of enjoying your family and friends around food and wine...You know, latin blood that is.

Eat, love, drink. And in this particular case, with a view to kill for.

French touch it's done

Our mission has been accomplished, the owner moved in with her family and everything is under control.

The charm of these old apartments is undeniably argentine. We like of think of it as "parisian-meets-the pampas", an unique combination of Old World tradition blended with the unique lifestyle that you can only find in this part of the Americas.

French touch

A french inspired building from 1910's. An apartment that has not been touched in over 50 years (not even cleaned!). High ceilings (over 3,40 meters high), magnificent panelled wood doors with a million coats of paint, two tiny and awkward bathrooms, a creepy mini kitchen and a carpet of an undescript colour (we guess it was light blue when it was installed, probably when Peron was ruling the country in the 50's).

That was the picture we saw when they called us to help with the renovation. Buenos Aires is full of those surprises. A combination of faded grandeur and half a century of harsh economy combine to create something that you rarely see in other places (especially not in New York).

The way they lived, those fancy argentinians from the Belle Epoque! Now, things have changed, and an apartment like this needs a new life. We are bringing new plumbing, electrical, paint (yes please!) and especially water and soap to clean those magnificent windows that overlook ancient trees.

A french touch s'il vous plait, for an absolutely wonderful, neurotic, sexy and noisy city. There is no place like home.

Attitude for destruction

There is something absolutely exciting about renovating an apartment...the thrill of the first knock on the wall, bricks falling down, the occasional chunk of old plaster hitting the floor...Dust, old pipes, wood floor, tiles, old cabinets...The old stuff is gone.

Walls falling down give place to new rooms. It is not a living room next to a dining room next to a library anymore...no way. Now we have this huge space, flooded with light...now we can see the four french doors leading to this amazing garden...a classical building from the 40's, where the owners (a young couple) trustred us with the mission of converting the ground floor apartment into something new and really special.

Right now it is only destruction, but soon we will have a new kitchen, a big bathroom and THAT walking closet that you only see on films. And a garden for Olga, the black lab.

All quiet on the Southern front

We have received a lot of emails asking about our lives, what is going on and why this blog has been so quiet.

The answer is very simple: we are incredibly busy, and after a few weeks of silence it is increasingly difficult to come back to this blog... We are spending a lot of time in South America (Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica...) working a lot in renovations and new projects, so there is no time whatsoever to post anything...

So we think The Chukker will rest for a while.

Best

http://www.chukker.net/

Happy Holidays

It`s been really quiet lately around here. We have so many things to do --work related, here in Buenos Aires as well as in Punta del Este--that we have no time for posting anything.

We will be back soon, the city is full of new and exciting things to do. For the time being, we leave you with the beautiful Christmas tree from Galerias Pacifico shopping mall along our warmest wishes for 2010.


The Chukker team

Photoshoot

We were asked by our friend, photographer Alejandra Lopez, to be generous and lend our terrace in Buenos Aires for a fashion photoshoot. It took about five seconds to say yes, especially after knowing that gorgeous Sofia Zamolo was the one and only model.

So, about a week ago we had this very cool crew coming over and spending a lovely and windy afternoon shooting different outfits for the upcoming Holiday season. Everybody was great, and we had a great time.

If you click here, you will see the backstage of the shooting...turn your speakers on and enjoy!

Naturaleza Aguirre Mar: party pictures

As our readers already know, we were involved in the design of the new store that Argentinian furniture maker Eugenio Aguirre opened last Monday in Buenos Aires. This new line is called Naturaleza Aguirre Mar (Mar meaning ocean in Spanish). So the whole concept was a new idea for the brand: we wanted to recreate the feeling of a beach house in a great location--French Caribbean, anyone?-- so we decided to build something between a store and a house.

The space is divided into a series of interconnected rooms, each of them displaying a different situation: bedroom, living room, family room...it's been done before (Ralph Lauren's store on Madison Avenue in New York is probably the best example) but it is a new idea in Buenos Aires, where all the furniture showrooms are just stores selling goods. Period.

The opening reception was held last Monday, and we probably had over 2,000 people attending. The party started at 6,30 and lasted until the last guests were basically asked to leave at 11,30 pm! There was a tent outside with two bars, live music, a great catering and a never ending supply of wine. The weather was really great--a wonderful summer night--so guests really enjoyed an unbelievable celebration.

We are already working on a project in Punta del Este in which this whole concept will be developed into an even bigger and more sophisticated space...This city is a summer resort that has always been THE place to be in January and February (our summer) so it is a fantastic opportunity to showcase this amazing new line.

Naturaleza Aguirre Mar

Buenos Aires Design Center

Av. Pueyrredon 2501 - (+54.11) 5777.6109