Barrio Lastarria is the city's most cultured neighbourhood, a compact grid of 19th-century streets southeast of the centre that clusters around the small Plaza Mulato Gil de Castro. The Museo de Bellas Artes, the Centro GAM, and several independent cinemas and bookshops make this Santiago's equivalent of Buenos Aires's Palermo Soho. Café terraces, antique dealers, and galleries line the cobbled Calle Lastarria, and on weekends a small antiques and crafts market sets up in the plaza.
Lastarria borders the Cerro Santa Lucía park — the hill where the city was formally founded — and the two together make for an excellent morning walk. The neighbourhood is also Santiago's most expensive area for coffee and brunch, but nobody seems to mind.