Colombians start their day with heavy foods that keep them going. Although fruit is a popular snack at any time of day, a typical breakfast in Bogota is more likely to include arepas, soup, tamales or even lechona (oven roasted pork).
People break up their morning by snacking on “medias nueves” around 10 am, then eating a hefty corrientazo lunch at noon, and tank up with “onces” in the afternoon. After all that eating activity during the day, dinner can run late, from 8-10 pm.
The city’s restaurants are divided into dining areas that sound like an alphabet soup: Zona C, T, G, K or M all stand for different areas of the city where restaurants, street food, and cafés abound.
There are some essential eats that can’t be missed when visiting Bogota, including some traditional foods and drinks that have been eaten here for centuries.
Tamales
Just a half block from the main square (called, of course, Plaza de Bolivar) in Bogota you’ll find the side door of a church. Back at the time when Bogota was founded, people used to gather there talk about the goings on around town, and it was natural that just across the street a small store would open to sell typical foods of the time. That small store became a tiny restaurant called La Puerta Falsa, which opened in 1816, and is today Bogota’s oldest functioning restaurant
Rumor even has it that Simon Bolivar would meet with Manuela Sáenz for a chicha here in the early 1800’s. True or not, today La Puerta Falsa can give you a dose of history and satisfying food all in one visit.
The hot chocolate, known as chocolate santafereño, is award-winning, but what you can’t miss here are the tamales. Corn flour filled with a flavorful pork and vegetable stew is wrapped in banana leaves and boiled. Open up the leaves and find a steaming hot lunch (or breakfast if you want to eat it as the residents do).
Chicharrón
Next to the imposing Museo Nacional, a jail-turned-museum, Doña Elvira has been quietly serving typical Colombian food since 1934. The tables outside crouch under the giant umbrellas and standing heaters that are typically used to fight off the Bogota rain and cold. Peer through the glass walls into the main dining area at lunchtime and you will see business people busy eating empanadas, cocido boyacense, and other typical Colombian dishes.
One of their outstanding dishes, though, is of Spanish origin – chicharrón, made Colombian style. They have chicharrón carnudo, which is the typical fried pork rinds that have layers of meat and fat, all fried to a crispy deliciousness. But don’t miss their chicharrón totiao, where the pig skin is dried out, and then fried so that the skin explodes into an inflated, crispy, and unforgettable treat.
Carne asada
When walking around downtown Bogota, you’ll often see a memorable scene. Small restaurants will place near the entrance, by a window, a unique barbecue grill typical of the cowboy country on the plains of Los Llanos. Bars are placed in a teepee shape with a wood fire built in the middle, and large slabs of meat are hung on the bars at just the right distance so the meat cooks slowly, leaving it juicy and full of flavor. A bit Flintstonesque, and thoroughly enjoyable.
Not far from the Gold Museum in downtown Bogota, Leños y Palos takes this a step further and gives an added ambience. In addition to the flames licking at the meat, they also have a small stage set up with typical instruments from Los Llanos: harp, maracas and a cuatro, a small four-stringed guitar. At lunchtime the band sings and plays musica llanera while diners enjoy their meal: large quantities of meat with rice, avocado salad, papas saladas (potatoes) and yucca, all served on rustic wood plates.
Lechón
Paloquemao is an amazing, maze-like market selling everything – exotic fresh fruits, vegetables, flowers and meats. Over near the loading dock behind the fish section you’ll find the Lechonería Doña Rosalba. For as little as $2 a serving you can try lechón, a typical dish from the Tolima area of Colombia. It’s a whole pig, about 3 feet long, stuffed with rice and vegetables, sewn up and then oven roasted for eight hours. The result is a crunchy toasted skin on the outside and flavorful meat on the inside.
Martha, the owner’s niece, serves me up some on a plate, scooping it out of the body of the pig and even snapping off a piece of the crispy skin to put on top. Bon appetit – Colombian style.
Ajiaco santafereño
From colonial times Spanish recipes have mixed with local traditions, and one of the results was a soup typical of Bogota called ajiaco.
Now a symbol of Bogota’s culinary scene, this soups boasts three types of potatoes (sabanera, pastusa and criolla), guasca (a green herb), and corn on the cob, with avocado and rice on the side. Spanish ingredients like chicken, cream, and capers are also added. Colombia is the only place to eat a truly traditional ajiaco, since some of those ingredients are hard to find outside the country.
One of the best places to get a true ajiaco is at Casa Vieja. The decoration of the restaurant – the terracotta floors, wood furniture and window frames adorned with flowers – feels like having a meal at home… if your home is an old farmhouse in Colombia. The soup is made with the best quality traditional ingredients, and the portions are large – in fact, the restaurant promises that if you’re still hungry after eating the first bowl, you can have a second one on the house.
Aromatica
Established in downtown Bogota in 1936 as a tea room, La Florida is part of Bogota’s history and heritage. As you walk up the winding wood staircase of this restored house to the upstairs dining area, you enter into another time. Republican decoration and waiters dressed in black aprons and bow ties takes you to a less hectic Bogota where afternoon tea or chocolate was the highlight of the day.
La Florida is known as a salón de onces, a Colombian version of a tea room where you can get your afternoon hot drinks and fresh breads. But what’s a hot drink for a Bogotano? Traditionally, agua panela (raw sugar tea), chocolate santafereño, and tinto (Colombian black coffee) are the drinks of choice.
But what you can’t get anywhere else is their version of an aromatica, a type of herbal fruit tea. Here it means getting served a long tray with small ramekins filled with maracuyá (passion fruit), agraz (a wild blueberry), strawberry and papayuela, basil and mint. You can mix these fruits as you want in your tea cup, add hot water, wait for a few minutes and then taste your aromatica from Bogota.
Bandeja Paisa
On the way between the Gold Museum and the National Museum, take a moment to walk from Carrera 7 up to El Envigadeño. This tiny restaurant is not concerned about attracting tourists, and looking at it from the outside you’d probably never consider entering. But this is the place to eat a bandeja paisa in truly Colombian surroundings, so have a look in.
When you duck through the door you’ll find yourself in a room with whiskey and coke bottles hanging from the tin roof and random objects, like an old saddle, steam irons, and radios from the 1930’s, perched in odd places. There are also truly Colombian objects like pistols and machetes. Welcome to Antioquia, a part of Colombia that was the original home and birthplace of the bandeja paisa.
The bandeja paisa here is one of the most delicious I’ve had; red beans cooked in a delicious gravy, flavorful ground beef, house made pork sausage, thick, crunchy patacónes (fried plantain), fat round corn arepas, fried egg, rice, a generous amount of chicharrón, and an avocado salad. This is all served in large portions, which means it is something for the brave. And the hungry. Which could, actually, be Colombia’s national anthem. Enjoy.
Have you tried any of these foods? Tell us what you think of them!
