Round the corner to the Mercado de San Telmo, which occupies a full city block on Defensa 963. The building is a magnificent iron-and-glass structure completed in 1897 by Italian architect Juan Antonio Buschiazzo — Buenos Aires' finest surviving example of nineteenth-century market hall architecture, its soaring iron trusses and glazed roof creating a cathedral-like interior. Food stalls, antique dealers, cafés, and a handful of small specialty shops share the floor space. It is a good place to pick up a coffee or something small before heading back north.
Return to the hotel in Recoleta by early evening on the Subte — take Line C from Independencia to Diagonal Norte, then change to Line D northbound to Facultad de Medicina — to rest before the tango.