Other restaurants in Colombia
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Donde Chucho
Serving the best seafood on the coast, and sitting on prime real estate on the newly renovated Parque Santander. Start with the signature salad (shrimp, octopus, calamari and manta smoked in olive oil) and move on to robaloau gratin (mozzarella and parmesan). Divine. If this place doesn’t fit your budget, go Monday to Thursday between 6pm to 9pm and enjoy cocktails at 2-for-the-price-of-1. Don’t miss it.
reviewed
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A
Il Forno
Set in the middle of the zona rosa (nightlife zone), this open-air Italian restaurant doesn’t do gimmicks or discounts, just good, solid food at a fair price. It serves pizza and sandwiches, lasagna and ravioli, and even steak. There’s a good range of salads for the herbivores. Desserts are a mere COP$6000. It may not be gourmet, but at this price, who cares?
reviewed
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B
La Casa de Socorro
This is a good little spot to try comida costeña, the typical food of the coast. It’s a casual spot with nice design touches like paintings on recycled walking planks, and the menu features staples like robalo (sea bass) smothered in cheese and garlic, along with more adventurous fare such as snail or turtle soup.
reviewed
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Tapas Macarena
Run by a Dutch/Colombian couple, this cool corner spot is tiny with a play on the usual tapas, including sautéed beef with Indonesian peanut sauce, and Dutch cheese plates. Plenty of Belgian beers too.
reviewed
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C
Quinua y Amaranto
This sweet spot – run by ladies in the open-front kitchen – goes all vegetarian, with tasty quinoa-based lunches and empanadas, salads and coffee later on.
reviewed
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D
Restaurante Vegetariano Salud Vibrante
Your best bet for a cheap veggie meal in Cali. Staff makes its own soy milk and wholemeal bread. Also sells good veggie empanadas.
reviewed
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Cali Viejo
Set in the lush grounds of the Bosque Municipal, the city park adjoining the zoo, Cali Viejo shows off Cali’s Pacific roots. Seafood is the star here – try the cazuela de mariscos (seafood stew, COP$41,000) or lobster (COP$58,000) – but it also does a great sancocho (COP$20,000). Wash it down with a champú or lulada, or a shot of the homemade aguardiente. The dining room has no walls, letting a breeze blow through. If you’re coming here from the zoo, take a taxi or flag down a passing bus; the area is a bit isolated and, hence, a bit sketchy.
reviewed
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Andrés Carne de Res
Hang onto your hats. This legendary steakhouse blows everyone away – even repeat visitors – for its all-out-fun atmosphere with decent steaks and all sorts of surreal decor and designed gimmicks such as menus retracting from the rafters. For most, it’s more than a meal – but a leave-the-watch-at-home expanse of late-night rumba. Staff will get you on the floor if you resist joining in. The catch is that it’s out of town – in Chía, 23km north towards Zipaquirá. A taxi from Bogotá costs about COP$25,000 to COP$40,000.
reviewed
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La Fogata
This fine restaurant is one of the best in town. It does good steaks and seafood, and the menu offers a few twists, like bistec de caballo (horse steak) and vuelve a la vida, a fish soup rumored to be an aphrodisiac. The restaurant sits on a triangular property not far from CC Portal del Quindío – look for the manicured bushes outside. The point of the triangle is an attached cafe-bar, open Monday to Saturday from 5pm to midnight, that serves gourmet cocktails (COP$15,000).
reviewed
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Color de Hormiga
Literally named ‘The Color of Ants, ’ Barichara’s best restaurant specializes in dishes made with the region’s famous delicacy. The filet mignon drenched in ant sauce and topped with fried ants is a must. There are also many insect-free dishes, like the scrumptious lamb curry and steak with blue cheese. Don’t forget to sample the extensive wine and dessert list. The lovely thatched-roof, open-air restaurant faces a lush garden and fishponds.
reviewed
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Colorde Hormiga
Literally named ‘The Color of Ants, ’ Barichara’s best restaurant specializes in dishes made with the region’s famous delicacy. The filet mignon drenched in ant sauce and topped with fried ants is a must. There are also many insect-free dishes, like the scrumptious lamb curry and steak with blue cheese. Don’t forget to sample the extensive wine and dessert list. The lovely thatched-roof, open-air restaurant faces a lush garden and fishponds.
reviewed
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E
Los Toldos
Elderly waiters wear traditional paísa costumes at this typical paísa place. Old-style Colombian folk music plays on the stereo. Go for the daily special, around COP$15,000, or indulge in a hearty bandeja paísa (platter). It prepares typical desserts like arequipe, breva and quesito (sample all three sweet and creamy treats for COP$5000). It’s a bit camp but the food is excellent.
reviewed
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Restaurante Café-Artesanal
A couple of doors down Erithryna Glauci Will is Restaurante Café-Artesanal where you can get good budget meals. It also sells hand-crocheted necklaces and earrings, and chicha de caña (fermented sugarcane juice), a tasty beverage. Look for the orange flowering vine that creeps around the verandah, or ask around town for the cafe run by the two dwarfs. Locals will point you in the right direction.
reviewed
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Paladar
It looks like a cafeteria, but wait till you see what it serves – homemade lasagna, casseroles of every sort, even the occasional stewed rabbit. The dessert selection is divine – cakes, pies, mousses; it makes us drool just thinking about it. The pastel Paladar (the house specialty, a multilayered chocolate and mocha cake) is orgasmic, and if you like lemon meringue pie, get in before noon – it goes quickly.
reviewed
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El Solar
Just a few hundred meters from the zona rosa (nightlife zone) is this top-notch grill restaurant with the funky decor. Kids’ bikes, umbrellas and empty wine bottles dangle from the ceiling, and bamboo shoots creep in from the outside. Friday night is a big night here, when there’s live music and beer prices double after 8pm. Afterward walk 200m downhill and take your pick of half-a-dozen discos.
reviewed
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La Fonda Antioqueña
A block from Plaza de Bolívar is this fine paísa restaurant. It serves traditional fare, including bandeja paísa (platter), and on weekends, sancocho. There are good views of the countryside from the 2nd-floor perch. Be sure to try mazamorra, a typical Zona Cafetera drink made of cooked corn with a guava bocadillo (sweet), served with a splash of milk.
reviewed
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La Fonda Antioqueña
A block from Plaza de Bolívar is this fine paísa restaurant. It serves traditional fare, including bandeja paísa (platter), and on weekends, sancocho. There are good views of the countryside from the 2nd-floor perch. Be sure to try mazamorra, a typical Zona Cafetera drink made of cooked corn with a guava bocadillo (sweet), served with a splash of milk.
reviewed
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Hernán Patacón
If you have come from any direction other than Panama, you are no doubt sick of smashed fried plantains, known as patacones. Here your faith is restored. This beach hut (there is another location in town) on Playa Blanca does larger, thinner versions topped with everything from chicken and mushrooms to arequipe (milk caramel) and cheese – a very nice change of pace.
reviewed
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G
Bahía Mar
This top notch seafood place offers mariscos in a Caribbean setting. Merengue plays on the stereo, and the signature dish is langostino Providencia (Providencia-style king prawns). The tables are laid out simply with blue tablecloths on top of white. They also do enormous shrimp cocktails and light platters of seafood crepes. A top choice for seafood in Medellín.
reviewed
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Asadero de Cuyes Pinzon
Pastusos get dressed up to eat at this place about 1.5km from the center of town. There’s only one thing on the menu: asado de cuy (grilled guinea pig). You’ll be given plastic gloves so you can rip the grilled rodents apart and share them. One cuy is big enough for two. Pasto is the only place in Colombia where cuy is mainstream and popular.
reviewed
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Il Castello
For authentic, top-quality Italian food, look no further than Il Castello. Try the fettucine trento (lobster served with a brandy and cream sauce), or the many pastas, raviolis and pizzas. It has an exceptional wine list; you’ll imbibe your drop of red in large balloon glasses. Tucked just off Calle 10, you’ll spot the place by the many expensive cars parked out front.
reviewed
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Café Studio
The island’s best restaurant is run by a Canadian woman and her Raizal husband, Wellington, who cooks the island dishes ‘she can’t get right.’ The results are both memorable and reasonably priced. Try Wellington’s conch, cooked in his own Creole sauce made with wild basil from their garden, or anything in garlic sauce. Save room for the cappuccino pie!
reviewed
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I
Baharoque
This new San Antonio restaurant serves a great set meal for COP$6000. Sample amazing salads garnished with tropical fruit, plus good steaks and chicken for you carnivores. Sundays see old-fashioned Cali dishes served, such as arroz atollado, a kind of risotto, and of course sancocho and ajiaco, both types of Colombian stew.
reviewed
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LA 14 Supermarket
The best cheap eats in town are in the LA 14 supermarket. It has half-a-dozen small eateries, including its own bakery, which does excellent meat pies (pastel de carne), pizza by the slice, buñuelos (deep-fried doughy balls of curd cheese and flour), pan de bono (bagel-shaped bun with a tart flavor), etc.
reviewed
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Restaurante Savia
The delightful Savia (previously Xirrus and Don D’Bill) specializes in inventive vegetarian, vegan and organic fare. Carnivores will love the fresh seafood and poultry dishes such as chicken in mango sauce. A plaque outside commemorates the last concert performed by former Elvis Presley drummer Bill Lynn before he died in Villa de Leyva in 2006.
reviewed
