Buenos Aires, Argentina > Buenos Aires restaurants > Mataron Kenny Café and Bar
Mataron Kenny Café and Bar
Moreno 3099 (@ General Urquiza); Tel. +(011.54.11) 4939-9459
Hours: M-Sa 9am-midnight. Closed Su.
Price range: $$
There are not too many successful restaurants whose artistic centerpiece is a vomiting child. But in the Mataron Kenny Café and Bar (or the They Killed Kenny Café and Bar), it is the quirks and antics of the animated television show South Park that draw the custom of local high school and university students. And so it is not out of place that a mural depicting the Chef and the four central characters of South Park also includes a large green pool of puke.
Apart from the initial mural and another beside the bathrooms that depicts Kenny reading the Mataron Kenny Times (fictional, I assume), there is little other emphasis on the animated series. Without these few references, Mataron Kenny would still be a comfortable, stripped back venue not at all reminiscent of the football and nationalistic themed surrounding coffee houses. Space is maximised by using window-sills as benches, which - instead of creating the feeling of a battery-farm - adds to the charming and chilled mood. The wait staff is attentive and not at all used to a foreign tongue or taste buds – they still ask where you are from with fascination.
It may be a perpetual joke on the person who wishes to peruse a menu, but a waiter told me there’d be a menu, ‘next week’. The Monday after, it was also arriving ‘next week’. If you have any idea of the typical food of Argentina then you have Mataron Kenny’s menu – pizza, pasta and other minutas (short-orders such as omelettes or milanesas). If you’d prefer a little more assurance of what you’ll receive, there a dozen pre-cooked options arranged on the bar – savouries, cakes, and cookies. For later in the evening, Mataron Kenny attracts a slightly older crowd. For the pre-bar drinks they have a simple selection of wines and liquors. For beers, instead of the atypical Argentinean Quilmes, Mataron Kenny stocks Schneiders.
—Mataron Kenny Café and Bar review by Murdoch Stephens
