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[title]From Avenida del Libertador, the Law School looked different. It wasn’t just the chill marking the first true taste of autumn in Buenos Aires, nor the usual traffic flowing through one of the city’s most iconic avenues. It was the façade of that monumental neoclassical building, entirely bathed in red light, its immense Doric columns transformed into the gateway to a special celebration: Nespresso’s 40th anniversary.
The brand that revolutionized the world of coffee with a simple idea — that anyone could make the perfect espresso at home — chose to celebrate in grand style with an event held last Thursday, bringing together leading figures from gastronomy, culture, fashion, and entertainment. All gathered, complete with a red carpet, to celebrate four decades of perfection in a cup.
The night, the venue, and the cocktails
Inside, the scale of the space — with its soaring ceilings, columns, marble, and the imposing geometry of academic architecture repurposed for another kind of occasion — worked perfectly. At the center of the hall stood a bar equipped with professional Nespresso machines, serving as both the visual and operational heart of the evening. Baristas prepared coffee for cocktails and for guests craving an espresso on a cold night.
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By eight o’clock, the venue was already packed, with invited celebrities including Juana Viale, Zaira Nara, Germán Martitegui, and Dolly Irigoyen, alongside a long list of influencers, journalists, and gastronomic figures. Behind a white tulle curtain in one corner of the hall, a live band cast silhouettes onto the fabric.
The cocktail menu was designed by Ramiro Ferreri, a bartender with thirteen years of experience and the person chosen by the brand to translate coffee into signature mixology. Ferreri created three drinks for the occasion: the Nespresso Martini (vodka, cold brew, and coffee liqueur), the Nespresso Tonic (cold brew with orange and tonic water), and one of the evening’s most requested cocktails: the Nespresso Autumn Red, a recipe combining Malbec wine, coffee cordial, and soda.
For Ferreri, working with coffee is nothing new, but the precision offered by a capsule when building a cocktail is. “What Nespresso has is that it adapts incredibly well to different types of drinks because there’s such a wide range of notes: fruity, acidic. It’s not just what we all know as that classic coffee flavor. And for us, achieving defined flavors is key. The capsule also allows for consistency, and in mixology that makes all the difference.”
From appetizers to dessert, everything with coffee
The gastronomy matched the occasion. The menu began with a parade of small cold bites — blue cheese mini cups, smoked trout tamagoyaki, foie gras habanito, and crunchy Asian salmon tartare, among many other delicacies — followed by hot dishes including Moroccan chicken with chili chutney, mini mushroom calzones filled with oyster and portobello mushrooms, and blue cheese bohío with pear chutney. The main course featured layered ribeye mille-feuille with pepper sauce, confit tomatoes, crispy potatoes, and asparagus.
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Dessert was, judging by the comments throughout the night, one of the most celebrated moments: a coffee crème brûlée with cream ice cream, paired with Nespresso Volluto — a perfect combination of Brazilian and Colombian Arabica aromas, sweet and light, with notes balancing smoothness and acidity. A search for aromatic profiles and defined flavors that connects directly with the world of specialty coffee. Coffee remained the star until the very end.
Volluto itself has a unique story. It was one of the four varieties with which Nespresso launched in 1986, and the only one to reach its 40th anniversary with its recipe completely intact: Brazilian and Colombian beans, light roasting, and low intensity. While the coffee world transformed around it several times, this capsule stayed true to its origins. As Camila Carpanetti, Nespresso Argentina’s Coffee Ambassador, explained: “Volluto is the icon. Other varieties have been reinvented over time, but this one never changed because it has something very special: it was part of the beginning.”
Forty years of a disruptive idea
Nespresso was born in Switzerland in 1986 with a premise that, at the time, sounded nearly impossible: that anyone could make high-quality espresso at home without being a barista. The idea — as innovative as it was disruptive — took years to take off. It wasn’t until the 2000s, with new machines, standalone boutiques, and a globally impactful campaign, that the brand truly began to scale. It did so quickly, eventually expanding to more than 80 countries, with over 800 boutiques worldwide and a brand identity few in the coffee industry have managed to build.
At around ten o’clock, Sandro Ribeiro, CEO of Nespresso for Argentina and Uruguay, took the stage to put the significance of these four decades into perspective. He spoke about Nespresso’s twenty years in Argentina and what this anniversary represents.
“Nespresso was born from a completely disruptive idea. It changed the way we drink coffee around the world and transformed something everyday into a premium experience,” the executive said. “It achieved this with a formula that may seem simple but is actually very difficult to accomplish: high-quality coffee, constant innovation, and a very strong relationship with customers.”
Ribeiro also highlighted the importance of the symbols that helped shape the brand over time. “Our friend George Clooney, with his sophistication and elegance, marked a very important chapter in that story,” he noted. But if the brand remains relevant after 40 years, he said, it is for another reason. “Because of our ability to keep reinventing ourselves. And the best example we have today is our new ambassador: Dua Lipa. More than a campaign, she represents a new era. An era of creativity, of discovering new ways to live and enjoy coffee.”
The brand’s new era
Ribeiro’s words still echoed through the room when the speakers took over and Dua Lipa’s music began to play. The Law School, which for decades had been a setting for legal debates, found a different purpose that night. The cold stayed outside. The evening shifted tempo. And coffee — in the tall glasses of the Autumn Red, the delicate Martini coupes, the desserts, and the glowing machines at the center of the hall — became the thread connecting it all. Just as Nespresso has done for four decades, and as Ribeiro emphasized, will continue to do for another forty years.