Rapa Nui

Evening: Centro Cívico

Back in the centre, the Paseo del Lago Arquitecto Alejandro Bustillo — a 2.4-kilometre waterfront promenade along the shore of Lago Nahuel Huapi — is the natural way to arrive on foot. Renovated in recent years, it offers one of the best perspectives of the lake at ground level: the water to one side, the Andes beyond, and the stone-and-timber buildings of central Bariloche coming into view as the walk approaches the Centro Cívico.

Rapa Nui is worth a stop along Calle Mitre. The shop was founded by the Fenoglio family, Italian immigrants who arrived in 1948 and passed the craft down through generations. The fra-nui — a Patagonian raspberry coated in layers of white and milk chocolate — is the house specialty and travels well. The chocolate en rama, a rough-barked slab that became the signature of Bariloche's chocolate tradition, is the Fenoglio patriarch's own invention: most of the other chocolaterías in town trace their lineage back to him, either through family or through former apprentices.

The Centro Cívico itself — a complex of tuff stone, slate, and Fitzroya timber completed in 1940 — remains the most successful expression of Bustillo's ambition to give the town a coherent identity: a civic ensemble that looks as if it grew from the landscape rather than being imposed on it. The steps descend toward the lake. The evening restaurant scene along Calle Mitre leans heavily toward trout, lamb, game, and Patagonian craft beer.