Never a Last Tango

"The tango is what it was, and what it is, for its simplicity," Barrios asserts, absently stroking the bandoneon in his lap. "In my modest opinion, there's only one tango."

Sitting with his back to the glowing golden arches of a drive-in McDonald's across the street, Quiroga sucks on a silver straw stuck in a polished black gourd filled with mate, the stimulating herbal infusion that in Argentina is as common as coffee. A tango tape is playing on a cassette deck near the stage. On a television in the back corner of the restaurant, a waiter is watching soccer.

Gaucho's Cafe was once a shrine to that other typical Argentine pastime. The restaurant used to be called Mundial '78, after Argentina won its first World Cup soccer championship. Quiroga, who opened the restaurant in 1988, sold it to some Colombians in 1990, then bought it back in 1992 and rechristened it Gaucho's Cafe. Quiroga is from Mendoza, the Argentine wine country on the Chilean border. He moved to Miami in 1984, and has since had a string of Argentine restaurants with snappy names: Casona de Carlitos on Miami Beach, then Che Bandoneon on Flagler, Dolce Vita on Collins (now Porcel), and Lito's Place.

Gaucho's Cafe is an unlikely name for a tango palace. Gauchos, cattlemen who live in the countryside, are not from Buenos Aires and do not dance tango. But in Argentina, Quiroga was a singer of country music. He recorded several albums with a popular group called Ecos del Ande. Then he went solo as a club singer and started performing tango as well as the country music of different Argentine regions. Now, at 60, he has thick eyebrows that look like smears of black shoe polish, and long fingernails on his right hand, which he uses to strum the guitar. On weekends, in between tango sets, he plays folksongs called cuecas with another guitarist, while Hector Perez bangs a bombo leguero, a South American drum made from a tree trunk.

It was about a year ago that Quiroga decided that Miami was lacking a venue for tango. Although tango classes in the area were easy to find, and Jorge Nel was holding occasional Saturday night parties with an orchestra, there was nowhere to consistently hear live tango and dance to it -- not since Carlos Gardel, another restaurant on Eighth Street with live tango, shut down more than a decade ago.

"In Miami, we needed a place that was complete," says Quiroga. "A place where people can dance, and where they can come and listen to a tango, and talk about tango."

He enlisted Perez, who is a friend from Mendoza. Stefano was another long-time friend. Barrios heard about Gaucho's and showed up one day with his bandoneon. During their weekly celebrations of wine, women, and song, with Quiroga telling bad jokes, they're like an Argentine version of the Rat Pack, in their own humbler version of the Sands in Las Vegas.

"The thing about this house is that it has identity," Quiroga asserts. "Argentine identity cien por ciento [one hundred percent]. You know why? Because if I go to a Chinese restaurant, I want to eat Chinese food, in a Chinese dining room, and listen to Chinese music. And if an Argentine comes out and starts singing in Chinese, I don't think it would be very good. So I make sure that everyone who works here is Argentine, and everything we do here is authentically born in our country. I would never come out and sing any song from a country that wasn't mine." He gets up to point out an Argentine flag in a glass case, which is for sale along with bottles of wine from Mendoza and packages of mate leaves. The only thing in the restaurant that is not completely authentic, Quiroga acknowledges, is the meat. The steaks are from Nebraska. Because of a historic case of hoof and mouth disease in Argentina, Argentine beef has not legally been imported into this country since before 1930.

While Quiroga doesn't mind cashing in on the current tango hype, the atmosphere at his restaurant is not one of fancy dancers or fashion seekers. Gaucho's Cafe has a populist feel that evokes tango's working-class roots rather than its sexy cinematic image. The same people, mostly Argentines and Cuban Americans, show up every weekend.

On this evening, a Tuesday, Perez is on the dance floor, as is Quiroga's daughter, Jimena, a pretty brunette with a Kate Moss figure. Jimena works as a waitress in the restaurant, but she is also Perez's teaching assistant. At the moment, she is trying to maneuver a rather uncoordinated young man across the dance floor. He keeps tripping over her feet.

Perez is having more success with his partner, who is easily swiveling her hips so that her foot, dangling from her bent leg, swings in and out between his legs. Their foreheads are touching, but their bodies remain about six inches apart, as the couple walks backward across the floor, then lurches forward again.