Las Mercedes is the loose-knit residential and commercial neighbourhood south of the Avenida Río de Janeiro, the closest thing modern Caracas has to a nightlife district. The neighbourhood has the highest concentration of contemporary restaurants in the city — chef-driven kitchens, sushi places, several decent steakhouses, and the most ambitious cocktail bars in Venezuela.
A handful of independent art galleries, the Sala Mendoza project space, and a few small contemporary-art collections cluster on and around Avenida Principal de Las Mercedes. The district has the city's most ambitious architecture from the 2010s — though much of it is half-finished — and the most reliable Friday and Saturday evenings.