Guisieppe Vicenti — Three Square Meters to Leave the Country

I’m not speaking in poetic metaphors or fever dreams brought on by the first chills of autumn. I mean it. I was walking through Buenos Aires —with that inertia that only comes when you’re not in a hurry but definitely hungry— when I noticed a tiny door. A door barely there, a slit in time. It led to a shop that looked more like a hallway. A rectangle three meters long by two and a half wide. I thought it was a bike repair shop.

But it was Guisieppe Vicenti.

And inside —as if logic had taken the day off— there were focaccias, cannoli, sfogliatelle, and a man who spoke more with his hands than his mouth. It smelled like a Sunday at someone else’s house. A mix of ricotta, espresso, and something sweet cooling on a tray. Everything had an accent — the objects, the aromas, the sounds. Even the scale behind the counter looked like it had a grandmother’s face.

That’s when I realized something you probably already knew: Buenos Aires, like many old and half-asleep cities, is full of portals. Places where geography ties itself into knots, and time folds in on itself. Guisieppe Vicenti is one of them. You step in from the cracked sidewalk of a random Buenos Aires street, and you’re suddenly on the Adriatic coast, with the scent of salt and black olives in the air.

You never really know what’s waiting behind a door. Sometimes it’s a hardware store with a man who has no interest in selling you anything. Sometimes it’s a doctor’s office. Sometimes it’s an argument. But every now and then, it’s a direct passage to another country —its culture, its flavors, its way of saying “good morning.”

Never underestimate the small doors. Sometimes they’re the best ones.

What matters is to keep opening them.