Antigua Tasca de Cuchilleros, Colonial house restaurant in San Telmo, Buenos Aires, Argentina

The Antigua Tasca de Cuchilleros is a colonial house at Carlos Calvo 319 in San Telmo, Buenos Aires. Its front room dates from around 1730, with walls of baked brick joined by mud and straw, straight wooden lintels, and brick ceilings on quebracho and palm beams. The lime-whitewashed facade has a segmental-arch window with a simple square-section iron grille, a two-slope tiled roof, and an entrance door leading to a rear patio.

The front room of the house dates from around 1730, making it one of the few colonial dwellings still standing in Buenos Aires. It later belonged to the family of Margarita Oliden, daughter of a sergeant of Juan Manuel de Rosas's Mazorca, and tradition holds that she died there after being wounded in Luján while fleeing with the payador Juan de la Cruz Cuello. A restaurant now occupies the building.

The house is remembered for Margarita Oliden, daughter of a sergeant of Juan Manuel de Rosas's Mazorca, who was promised to Ciriaco Cuitiño but loved the payador Juan de la Cruz Cuello. She is said to have fled through an underground passage linking the house to the church of Nuestra Señora de Belén, was wounded in Luján and died back in this house.

The entrance on Carlos Calvo leads through the door into a rear patio, so the colonial layout is visible on arrival. The front room, with its mud-and-straw brick walls and wooden lintels, is the part dating from around 1730. Look up at the quebracho and palm beams supporting the brick ceilings.

The legend says Margarita Oliden escaped her father's plan to marry her to Ciriaco Cuitiño, chief of the Mazorca, through an underground passage linking the house to the church of Nuestra Señora de Belén, apparently dug for smuggling. Caught in Luján, she was carried back and died here.