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Faena Hotel
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Looking for help choosing or for a property we don't list? Message our Private Rates Concierge on WhatsApp for member rates and insider knowledge on the right stay
A theatrical Philippe Starck-designed hotel in a converted 1902 grain mill in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires, with a crown-shaped pool and a famous tango cabaret.
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Need To Know
- 88 rooms and suites, many with skyline or Ecological Reserve and river views
- Set in El Porteño, a 1902 grain mill in Puerto Madero, transformed in 2004Interiors by Philippe Starck for Alan Faena, in red, gold, black and white
A crown-fountain pool, a silo spa with hammam, and the nightly Rojo Tango cabaret - El Mercado and Bistró Sur restaurants, the Library Lounge and La Cava wine cellar
- 15 minutes from Aeroparque (AEP); about 40 minutes from Ezeiza international (EZE)
Check in - Check out
Check in from 14:00; check out before 12:00.
We Love
- The design — Philippe Starck's theatrical interiors in red, gold, black and white, set against the exposed Manchester brick and concrete of the old mill; red velvet, crystal, unicorns and white leather throughout.
- The Rojo Tango — a fiery nightly tango dinner-show in the intimate red-and-gold El Cabaret, with a live orchestra; among the most celebrated tango experiences in Buenos Aires.
- The pool — a long outdoor pool lined with red loungers and centred on a giant gold crown-shaped fountain, with the Puerto Madero skyline behind; sundowners from the Poolbar.
- The cellar — La Cava, the subterranean wine cellar holding one of the grandest collections in Argentina, with private tastings among the bottles; a temple to Malbec below the hotel.
- The spa — built into the mill's round grain silos, with a candlelit marble hammam and a stone sauna; a calm, sculptural counterpoint to the drama upstairs.
Key Features
Book Your Stay at Faena Hotel
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Location
Address
Martha Salotti 445, C1107CMB Buenos Aires, Argentina
Travel Info
Faena stands on Martha Salotti in Puerto Madero, the redeveloped docklands on the eastern edge of central Buenos Aires, by the river and the Ecological Reserve and a short ride from San Telmo. Aeroparque (AEP) is about 15 minutes by car, Ezeiza international (EZE) roughly 40. A taxi is easiest into the city.
Last Updated: 2026-06-15
Expert Review
Origins
Faena occupies one of the most theatrical buildings in Buenos Aires, and its story is one of rescue and reinvention. The structure is El Porteño, a vast grain mill built in 1902 by the agribusiness firm Bunge y Born from bricks shipped in from Manchester — once one of the largest mills in the country, feeding grain to post-war Europe. When the docklands of Puerto Madero fell idle, the mill was left derelict, and by 1998 it was slated for demolition before local preservation groups stepped in to save it.
Its second life began with Alan Faena, the Argentine fashion designer turned impresario, who bought the ruin and, with the French designer Philippe Starck, reopened it in 2004 as a hotel like no other in the city. Starck kept the mill's industrial bones — the Manchester brick, the concrete pillars, the soaring volumes — and filled them with unrestrained theatre: red velvet and gold, crystal and white leather, unicorns and antique mirrors. "Red like passion, gold, black," as Starck put it; "the incarnation of the spirit of Argentina."
The hotel was the first move in something larger. Its success seeded the whole Faena District of Puerto Madero — residences, an arts centre in the neighbouring Los Molinos mill — and helped turn a forgotten port into the city's most expensive quarter, before the Faena name went on to Miami Beach and New York. The hotel itself runs to 88 rooms and suites over the old mill, looking out across the skyline on one side and the green of the Ecological Reserve and the river on the other — a grand, dramatic, slightly surreal landmark that still feels unlike anywhere else in Buenos Aires.
Top Secret
The hotel's signature experience is after dark, and it is worth booking before you arrive. In the intimate red-and-gold El Cabaret, the Rojo Tango show is among the most celebrated tango evenings in the city: a small live orchestra, a handful of dancers, dinner and a couple of hours of the fierce, close, glamorous tango that Buenos Aires invented, staged a few feet from your table. It sells out, and rightly; in a city full of tango shows, this is the one that matches the drama of its setting. Book it as you book the room.
The Review
Faena is the most theatrical place to stay in Buenos Aires, and among the most striking hotels anywhere in South America. It occupies El Porteño, a 1902 grain mill in the redeveloped docklands of Puerto Madero, which Alan Faena and Philippe Starck reopened in 2004 as a riot of red velvet, gold and white leather set against the building's raw industrial brick. It launched the Faena name — now in Miami and New York — and the cultural revival of the whole district, and it remains a genuine design landmark.
The 88 rooms and suites are pure Starck spectacle — rich reds, marble bathrooms, antique mirrors, skyline or river views — and the public spaces are the real theatre: a crown-fountained pool, the Library Lounge with its live music, the silo-shaped spa with its candlelit hammam, the El Mercado and Bistró Sur restaurants, and La Cava, one of the grandest wine cellars in the country. Above all there is the Rojo Tango cabaret, a destination in its own right.
It suits travellers who want drama, design and a sense of occasion over quiet or understatement — this is a big, glamorous, see-and-be-seen landmark, not a retreat, and it revels in it. Puerto Madero is a polished riverside district, a little apart from the older city, with San Telmo's milongas and the centre a short ride away. For a Buenos Aires stay with real spectacle and a building with a story, nothing else quite compares.
