Pick Up The Fork

A Serious Eater's Guide to Buenos Aires and Beyond

Malvón: Villa Crespo’s Perfect Café

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Breakfast, lunch, merienda, brunch – yet another quality café has made an appearance in the up-and-coming culinary neighborhood of Villa Crespo. Situated near Buenos Aires’ outlet store central, BA meets New York in Malvón, the bread haven coffee shop.

From the owner of Palermo ethnic powerhouses Green Bamboo and the former Bereber, Malvón was created to resemble a New York-inspired deli and café.  Housed in a refurbished casona, this comfortable and beautifully designed coffee house is equipped with two dining room areas, garden seating in the back patio, outdoor tables on the sidewalk and a bakery displaying wonderful breads and other baked goods.

The menu consists of an eclectic mix of cuisines, a bit random, offering daily breakfasts, lunches and meriendas, with brunch specials on the weekends.

Think pancakes, chicken club, eggs, ribs, corn bread, salads, hamburgers, pastrami sandwiches, guacamole, cheesecake, bread – very random indeed.

One of the best thing about Malvón: the bread basket. Killer bread, they make a mean focaccia, rye and multigrain – all available to take home.

Every café de moda and their mother seems to be offering some form of bread with a hole in the middle that disturbingly passes as a bagel.  Bagel-mania (pronounced BAAAY-gul) has hit the city, with variations of this doughnut shaped baked good popping up around town.  

Every time I see bagel & lox on a menu, I have a hard time not ordering it.  True, the outcome is generally disappointing, but some part of me hopes the next one will be the real deal.  This NY Bagel homemade gravlax salmon, cream cheese and dill is one of the best out of the Buenos Aires bunch.  The bagel had the right chewy consistency and no oily outside. It was cooked right: boiled and baked.

Brunch fit for champions – eggs Estrellados: fried egg served over roasted potatoes with panceta and greens.  The egg a bit overcooked, but overall a star.

Malvón also does a mean Eggs Benedict – served on an English muffin with ham and topped with a strip of some of the crispiest bacon I’ve tasted at a Buenos Aires restaurant.

Fluffy and sweet, these berries and cream topped pancakes were mighty sweet.


The awesome space.

On your way out, don’t forget to grab a slice of passionfruit cheesecake or carrot cake, a loaf of NY rye, pumpernickel or French baguette.

While the food can be somewhat hit or miss – sometimes I walk away with a great Malvón food experience, and other times it’s just mehhh, it’s always a great choice for a Villa Crespo café. Beware on the weekends: get there early (or late) because this place gets bizzzaaay. (It’s not worth to wait 20 minutes+ for a table, you are better off going to Café Crespín, La Crespo or any of these Villa Crespo spots).

Malvón
Serrano 789, Villa Crespo
Tel. 4774-2563
Monday – Sunday, 9am – 8pm

Author: ForkYou

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Comments

Comments

  1. Brunch is now $70/80 pesos. Good but not great, maybe my expectations were too high….
    I want to try the meriendas but I ain’t going back for brunch!

  2. I also gave this place a try and I even took friends with me. I went wanting to love this place! The food was pretty good, but the service was so bad it was weird. The only way I would try going back would definitely be outside of peak hours. Meanwhile there are other places out there that do manage to match good food with good service…

  3. food I had for brunch was not great , but the service was the worst I’ve seen in months. But I have to admin that I had some take outs and the cheesecake was awesome

  4. visited here today, the food was great, but service very slow. they changed their menu and the brunch specials are now 55 pesos without coffee refills but still worth it!

  5. I love this blog and I’mnow a follower! My dad is from Bs.As, but I grew up here in Sweden, only visited a few times. I really enjoy coming here to get more ideas for my next trip. Mi querido Buenos Aires!

  7. Can’t even get a good bagel in Santa Fe. Can you believe they even put green chile in them. Miss Once Upon A Time in HP.

  8. Looks good. I am still on the hunt for the perfect brunch/ eggs benedict in this city. Oui Oui is fine but a long wait, Cafe Crespin was good but no eggs benedict and we waited an hour for the food at Gringa…
    Where should we go next?

  10. should visit most def! love that so many places are taking this “laid back” route and offer something much lighter then the usual heavy dining experience.

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