“So you live in Chacarita? That’s a cool neighborhood to be in!”

The buzz on the ‘Little Farm’ started out as a faint hum a decade ago. Now, Chacarita has become such a hive of activity that it’s leading Buenos Aires’ eating and drinking scene. In the 12 years I’ve lived in the ‘hood, plenty has come and some have gone, but many establishments that set up shop in this low-rise residential barrio have flourished.

I first set foot in Chacarita to pick up gig tickets. As a writer on the entertainment desk of this publication in 2008, I took the B line early one spring morning to Dorrego station, and walked several eerily peaceful cobbled street blocks to a curious building, a former textiles factory where, more curiously, I live today. Winding through the labyrinth of hospital-like corridors, I rang the designated doorbell, stated my name and received an envelope with the tickets inside. I scarpered back to the safety of San Telmo and thought no more of Chacarita until I moved there four years later.

At that time, El Galpón was causing a foodie furor, an organic market operating out of a converted railway warehouse next to Lacroze station, its vegetable patch giving a new lease of life to disused tracks. The twice-weekly market was the place to pick up fresh milk in glass bottles, free-range eggs and dewy lettuces — a pioneer for the time. Across the street is the legendary pizza palace El Imperio, whose lactose-loaded slices have been fuelling........

© Buenos Aires Herald