You may have guessed it from our name, but our inspiration is Buenos Aires, and the cafés and restaurants that we knew when we were growing up – both traditional wood-panelled places, peopled by the black-aproned waiters who had worked there for years, and fabulous parillas where the meat was succulent and wine flowed freely. After years living in London, we were homesick for Buenos Aires and above all desperate for a good steak. So we decided to create our own place – somewhere you could hang out and relax with family and friends, where you could eat good quality, affordable food, and above all where you could find great steaks, pizza and pasta – just like we used to know at home.
Reinaldo Vargas spent years dancing and choreographing cabaret shows – in clubs, on cruise liners and in theatres and concert halls all over the world. He has danced with highly regarded international stars like Juan Carlos Copes y Maria Nieves, Anibal Troilo (Pichuco) and Helen Shapiro – and worked with none other than Demis Roussos and Michael Barrymore. Naturally his favourite genre was tango, which he danced with wife Kate all over the world. Later, dancing became more of strain and gave up his globetrotting lifestyle to settle in London, and had a short stint as a war correspondent, before making the most of his favourite hobby and becoming a paparazzo photographer, haunting the celeb-favoured restaurants and clubs of the West End in search of the perfect snap that would make his fortune. It was a tough life, but always interesting, and provided the perfect grounding for starting up a restaurant of his own in 2005. He’s a food-lover through-and-through, who built a barbecue the size of a small house in his back garden.
Kate Vargas worked in fashion and retail – mostly posh shops like Liberty, Gieves & Hawkes and Fenwick – before throwing it all in to take to the road with husband Reinaldo on the global dance circuit. She still loves clothes, but decided she liked food even more, smartly developing it into a career when she opened the first Buenos Aires Café in Royal Hill in 2005. Then, as now, the motivation was to keep things simple, and bring high-quality produce to the table, When not at the restaurant, she spends her time at the stables with her beloved horse, Rocco.