introduction

this doesn't pretend to cover a wide range of different places - we're not going to eat somewhere that looks terrible just to see if the food compensates, for example, and we like cafés and "mediterranean" food. i'm also less likely to bother writing a review if we thought somewhere was terrible (or at least, given my temprament, if it was average). on the other hand, i will try to include places that i visit with my co-workers (mainly on our regular pay-day meal-of-the-month excursions).

indicates that some kind of veggie food is available. if it's not present, you may have success asking, or you may still find a salad of some kind. yes, i'm vegetarian. yes, i eat meat if there's nothing "reasonable" otherwise. i'm not going to argue about it here.

quality rating from 0 to 3 stars. this rating takes account of the price, so a 3-star expensive meal has to be "better" than a 3-star cheap one in some sense. i would try hard to avoid eating at somewhere with no stars. life is too short to revisit places with just one star. two star places may be worth another visit on certain occasions. three stars could be regular haunts if i had the time/money.

price rating from 0 to 3 $. i try to give prices in reviews, if i can remember. this is very relative - eating out is cheap here compared to the uk...¹

café on the corner near bellas artes/mac (central stgo)

bellas artes and mac are the two big art galleries that share the same building, back-to-back. this café is just to the side of the main entrance to bellas artes - i don't know its name.

once, when exhausted with work, i ran away. it was raining, mac was closed (it has a leaky roof) and there were no guest exhibitions at bellas artes, but i regained my sanity in this café, over an expresso, for 750 pesos. the coffee was great - so was the biscuit, water and tiny tiny glass of amaretto liquor that came with it (i should say that i've had expresso here many times, but it only came with a sip of liquor that once - maybe they felt sorry for me).

while that expresso was pretty cheap, the food here always seems a bit pricey for what it is (although the veggie sandwich is delicious). but the location is perfect for watching people visit the galleries. on the other hand, it does tend to attract foregin tourists (go away! i live here!).

figaro café, 181 guardia vieja (providencia)

this café, right by where i work, opened just a few weeks ago. the competition round here is fierce - there are many office workers, all looking for 3 course lunctime meals for about 2.000 pesos - so rather than try to compete directly, figaro tries to be a bit more fancy, which is great if you either (1) are rolling in money or (2) would rather have a nice coffee and sandwich for the same price.

weve eaten here a couple of times - they do a kind of menu that includes fresh fruit juice (excellent), toasties (pretty good, but still toasties), coffee (good) and cake (delicious) for about 2,600. pauli once had a thai salad, which was more like a soggy stir fry, but much nicer than that sounds.

rivoli, nueva de lyon 77 (providencia)

one saturday during the hell that was approaching-deadline-at-webtron, i slipped away from work to have lunch with pauli here. we paid with half of my monthly allowance of restaurant cheques (16.000 for a shared starter, two main courses, a glass of wine and some soft drinks).

i ate the best pizza i've had in a long time (the only really good pizza i've found in chile so far) - everything was delicious (except the wine which seemed pretty ordinary and had a silly price).

eating fairly early on a saturday we started almost alone, but by the time we were leaving the place was starting to fill with families - noisy kids, women who needed to be kissed by the owner, and men in shirts and slacks. upper-middle class santiago in all its finery.

como agua para chocolate (bellavista)

we went here with astronomer friends. the evening was a bit of a flop, so maybe i'm judging the restaurant too harshly, but for this price (i think we should have paid about 25.000, but we didn't have enough cash so someone else filled the gap!) you should be expecting something really good.

the veggie option was stir fried veg with coconut. it wasn't bad, but a big pile of stir friend veg is a bit boring. and the service was terrible. and it was absolutely packed - maybe it's the place to be seen at?

marisqueria tongoy (central stgo)

(a bit cheaper than that!)

there's a chilean word - picada - that means something like "a cheap place with good food, a bit off the beaten track, but popular with regulars" (spanish is clearly a very compact language). anyway, this place was described to me as a picada.

it's up a street off the main road (alameda) through santiago - if you're driving from providencia (as we were), turn right onto general bulnes a short time after passing la moneda. you'll find it on the right - there's parking on the other side of the road. the building itself would make a wonderful house - it's an old colonial place with high ceilings, tall windows and wooden floors.

i had fish (congrio) and chips - the batter was perfect - and about half a bottle of cold chardonay for around 6.000. esteban (this was a work meal) had a very tasty looking chowder and someone else swore that the fish with parmesan(!) was delicious. they were probably right - it don't remember eating better battered fish (the chips could have been a bit more like traditional uk fish+chip chips, but were acceptable).

la leona (las condes)

(a bit cheaper than that!)

(this review from dim memory) iirc, we ate here for my birthday. i had a spinach and something pizza, which was pretty good. pauli had pasta, i think. the wine was good and cheap and the place was packed. i'm not sure of the price, but i guess it was around 12.000 for the two of us and i'd have given it three stars, but rivoli is probably worth the extra money.

da renzos, guardia vieja (providencia)

(or maybe more)

if you like fresh pasta, this seems to be pretty much the place to go. the windows are full of displays of different pastas. the main items on the menu are pastas. it also sells pasta "raw", to cook at home.

so i ordered pasta - a selection piled high on the plate (which have included a little meat in some of the raviolis, but the fillings were mainly ricotta/spinach etc) and three sauces (i ordered standard tomato and pesto, but a cheese sauce arrived too, for no particular reason). it was pretty good - fresh pasta is pretty good, after all. the tomato and cheese sauces weren't that exciting (the other sauces contained meat), but the pesto was excellent.

we went in the winter (another saturday escape from bloody 6-day working) and pauli ordered something (can't remember the name) that turned out to be a kind of cold meat roll. it was very nice but, well, cold (the friendly waitress said that next time we should ask them to warm it up!).

i can't remember the price, but it's considered a bit expensive by my colleagues (i work just down the road), which suggests it would have been about 8.000 for two main courses, coffee, and a glass of wine for me and a fruit juice for pauli.

p.s. no pizzas!

el huerto, orrego luco (providencia)

i can't remember the details, i'm afraid, but this veggie restaurant failed to inspire us. which is a pity, it being vegetarian and near work.

part of the problem, i guess, is that here "vegetarian" is a health thing, rather than a moral choice. and it's a fad of the better-off, too, so prices tend to be high. in other words you pay a lot for brownish food.

da san yuan, guardia vieja (providencia)

traditional (in the "just like an english take-away" sense) chinese food. the only difference is from the uk is the replacement of noodles with a kind of egg roll (think cylindrical omlette).

for 4.000 (set meal plus soft drinks) it's not bad value, and it's clean and friendly (if understaffed at peak times). the food is well-prepared (the fried wonton are light and crispy, the sweet and sour not too sickly). i'd have given it more stars if i liked this kind of food - if i have to eat chinese i'd prefer something a bit more adventurous (and don't they have vegetarians in china?)...

liguria, pedro de valdivia (providencia)

(a bit cheaper than that!)

[later note] the food and atmosphere are consistently good here, but i've just come back from a meal where i was charged 2.400 for a glass of wine. all i asked for was a glass of red - i was billed for a "reserva", and in my opinion that's not what i drank. so, like so much in chile, remember that people here will screw you if they get a chance.

pauli was away observing and my boss had just asked me to stay at work, through the night. it was about seven, so i went for a walk, trying to find a restaurant that would might lift my spirits. i found liguria. for an hour, with a glass of wine and some good food, life seemed worth living.

given my "flexible" vegetarian morals, you may not believe my claim that i was expecting a salad and assorted broschetta (sp? slices of italian bread, toasted, with tomatoes, onions, garlic, herbs and oil on top). instead, i received two chunky meat kebabs which, i must admit, were pretty damn tasty - although one of the pieces of beef was a bit too chewy for me (pork seems to be better than beef here in chile).

that, a glass of decent cabernet sauvignon, and an espresso, came to 5.600 (including 10% tip). i'm pretty sure (but i've already been wrong once...) that there was at least one veggie option on the menu (gnocci in a tomato sauce), and the selection of meat dishes outdid my spanish (i think i recognised rabbit with mustard, for example).

the ambience was as good as the food - welcoming, noisy, busy but competent staff. i don't eat alone often (usually only when travelling), but managed to feel at ease. or maybe i'm just exhausted.

p.s. since then, we visited another branch (there's three in total) near manuel montt early one lunchtime. i had a sandwich which was ok, but too expensive (2.500 or so, for tomato, cheese and avocado).

la pizza nostra (las condes)

2.500 for a glass of house red (i didn't see it on the menu - and i suspect that's deliberate)? pizzas that have that chemical-cheese taste like the cheap ones you buy ready made at the supermarket? no thanks. (especially when la leona is just down the road)

(2004 - we visited the pizza nostra in providencia. just as bad.)

xxxx's café (brazil)

brazil is a street in central santiago that (apparently) has a reputation for late-night partying. but further away from the town centre, towards the old train station, it's just one more scruffy santiago street with a small, scruffy café/restaurant (sorry - can't remember the owner's name, hence the "xxxx") catering for the people who live and work nearby.

for 1.000 you get a glass of "juice" (the kind you make from powder and water), a salad, and a main course. i had stuffed courgette (which included some meat, but was the most veggie-sounding thing on the extensive menu) and pauli had fish.

good, basic, tasty, chilean food - the kind of thing you'd eat in someone's home here. reasonable portions (not huge, but enough). 1.000 pesos. leave a big tip.

pollo con cognac (lo barnechea)

another picada, this time in the main street of lo barnechea (on the right, soon after entering, if you're coming from town). a huge place inside - we (people from work) ate alone one friday lunchtime, but the waiter claimed it was full at weekends - that serves "chicken in cognac".

i believe there's a menu, but the pollo is what people come here for. we ordered enough for four, some chips (excellent chips - fat, soft, and tasty) and salad.

a large bowl of chicken pieces (you get half a chicken per person) floating in broth was brought to the table. the little cups aren't for tea - you're supposed to drink the broth, which is steaming hot, very peppery, and very filling. the chicken itself was no better than "ok" (i preferred the chips and the freshly made bread and (chicken) paté more), but the experience is worth the visit. it's nice to have something to like about this country...

el naturista (moneda 846, central stgo)

(or maybe more)

a busy, down to earth, veggie restaurant in the town centre. this is what average café/restaurant places in town centres would be like if we were all vegetarian. steady, but somehow uninspiring food. smelt of boiled cabbage.

they have another restaurant, in fancy vitacura, with the same name. i ate there once, but can only remember not being impressed. i would guess the prices are higher.

(pauli liked the avocado dip thing and would, i suspect, give two stars here)

nuria (hurfanos, central stgo)

if you're in the town centre and want to know what chilean food is all about (and why some chileans are, well, not quite as thin as they could be), then try this place.

a lomito sandwich is easily big enough to share between two. if you get the completo, try not to look too closely at the white mayonaise-like stuff (i mean, there's no way it really can be sperm, right?).

piles of traditional food and the house red is good and resonably priced. this place has been around for generations. (two main courses, one wine and coffees for under 7.000; veggie options are pretty much all salads or a dodgy looking pizza)

falafel (bellavista and patronato, bellavista)

we've had falafel from here a couple of times. moist and tasty, unlike the rather dry stuff you can get from the shop on kennedy, wrapped in a taco with herbs and salad.

one stuffed taco to take away (you can eat in) and a bottle of coke to drink while waiting for it to be prepared came to 1.000 pesos. priceless.

it's a good position too - just across the river from the arts museums with some interesting street markets nearby (clothes on patronato; crafts etc on bellavista and pio nono). interesting paintings on the walls. watcha waiting for?

ps they also have doner kebabs and various "authentic" looking things wrapped in leaves etc that probably contain meat too...

(if you want to eat falafel at home there's a shop now (2004) open behind the "drugstore" mall in providencia. it's not cheap, but sells frozen falafel that are damn good)

[this place - in bellavista - closed in 2005]

le fournil (las condes and las tranqueras, las condes)

[closed during winter 2003]

(chilean) spanish has a useful, but difficult to define, word: cuico (or cuica, feminine). it defines a social class. at its simplest, it means rich - to many people, we are cuicos. but amongst the rich, the distinction is more nuanced. if you're cuico you're proud of your social standing; your politics tend to be right wing and you're probably religious. you have several children and they go to good private schools. you're probably lighter skinned and you wear expensive clothes: women (usually thin, often dyed blonde) always look fairly dressy, while men, when they're not in suits, look uncomfortable in ralph lauren.

le fournil was full of cuicas, but we're not sure why. one explanation might be the size of the portions - small. presumably small portions appeal to cuica women, since they don't need to leave as much uneaten. but surely even conservative people enjoy well prepared and presented food?

pauli had a sandwich - ham, palm hearts and dried tomatoes. palm hearts are fairly fancy and i guess dried tomatoes might be the latest thing here, but that only makes the plastic sliced ham harder to explain. the quantity of filling was spartan - not the exuberant pile you might expect for 3.200 pesos - and the bread lacked any excitement (two square, white slices). it even looked boring - four triangles on a plate with no garnish.

for 3.400 i had a salad that was half lettuce (no bread to start or accompany the meal, even though this place is also a bakery). on top of the lettuce was a pile of suspiciously uniformly sliced olives - i guess their flavour was processed out of them in a factory - and bland goat's cheese that had been faintly singed under the grill (enough for you to see the odd brown speck, but not taste anything different). and how could i forget two pieces of sun dried tomato (what a hip modern funkster that chef is)? really, those aren't bad ingredients - with better cheese, a dressing, tastier olives and less lettuce it could have been pretty good. instead it looked (and tasted) as if it had been assembled by throwing supermarket food together.

the total price, including a fruit juice and coke, came to 8.600. for that kind of price you can get much, much better food in santiago. maybe the cuicos go there just to demonstrate that they don't mind wasting money?

oh, and the service was slow. except for clearing away plates before both of us had finished eating (this practice, alas, isn't restricted to le fournil).

marisquera los porteos (cochrane 102, valparaiso)

(or maybe a little more)

pretty good basic seafood. chips and salads could be better, but fish and batter tasty (dad ordered paella, got some kind of seafood stew, and wasn't complaining), wine reasonable, and final charge (15.000 for 3 main courses and a decent bottle of rhin) less than we were expecting from the menu (spartan surroundings, but friendly service - tip not included in the price above).

calypso (camino al volcan 9831)

(or maybe a little more)

you don't need a car to see maipo valley - at least, not up to san jos. and that's far enough, because it includes calypso (you can catch a bus from behind central station in santiago centre, or take the metro out to bellavista la florida and then pick up a metrobus).

we (me, pauli, mum and dad) arrived just after midday, rather early, so we ordered the mixed platter and a round of pisco sours (except pauli, who had a very fruity raspberry juice). the platter (and bread, and herb butter) was pretty good: mozarella cheese (possibly homemade, as the dogs were lapping up a bowl of whey) and tomatoes; ham with a mustard dressing; smoked hard cheese (very good and the first time i've seen it here in santiago); salmon on biscuits; and a panake stuffed with vegetables in a creamy sauce.

an hour or so later we ordered main courses. the restaurant is only open thursday to sunday (lunch only sunday), and pizza is only available saturday, so we were restricted to pasta. mum had pasta parcels filled with salmon, in a creamy sauce (with more salmon); pauli and dad had tagliatelle and seafood; i had ricotta and cheese somethings (big, triangular ravioli) with a creamy, nutty sauce. to drink we ordered a litre of house red.

this isn't much of a review, i guess. when everything is delicious there doesn't seem to be much to say. if i went again, i'd choose a better wine - it was ok, but a bit sweet (the red), and the prices were pretty sensible (errazuriz corton for about 5.000, for example).

anyway, the wine slipped down (no car means no driver means an entire wine-happy family), the food was guzzled, and we set the world to rights (somewhat noisily by now - but we were sitting outside (glorious weather, sunny, but with shade and a cool breeze) and only one other table was taken).

another hour or so later we had coffee, which arrived (nice surprise) in a standard stove-top espresso pot, with a jug of hot milk. rich, strong coffee. then, compliments of the house, a homemade lemon liquor. by now we were pretty sozzled, stuffed and sleepily content, and the bill - a round 40.000 for 4 including tip - didn't dampen spirits.

ah, chile! and italians! (and italian's dutch wives!)

[later] we visited one weekend lunchtime, and this place was packed. the service was rushed and the food didn't seem as good. beware.

el txoko alaves (mosqueto 485)

we (me + parents, here on holiday) visited this restaurant one lunchtime and had the menu of the day at 5.000 a head. that's pretty steep for a colación, but good value here (a main course costs as much a la carte), including a glass of wine (decent tarapacá, poured from a bottle at the table) and real (expresso) coffee.

everything was good, the starters particularly so. although a "fixed" menu, there was a choice of four starters (as many main courses, and more sweets). i had pasta with a deliciously creamy paprika/chorizo sauce; parents both had (cold but cooked) fish with chopped onions and vegetables (unfortunately i didn't understand much of the menu until the friendly waiter explained things, so i can't remember the correct names).

for the main course dad had a stewed cut of beef which looked tasty, but maybe wasn't what he was expecting. mum had pork which also looked pretty good, and i had fish with a light lemon sauce. all decently cooked.

sweets were less exciting (if the meal had continued with the standard of the starters i think we'd have been in heaven), but the apricot mousse seemed fresh, rather than from a packet. one day pauli and i should have dinner here after visiting the art gallery...

given the surroundings, service, and quality of the food, the fixed menu seems a real bargain. hopefully the main courses a la carte would be more sophisticated (i wouldn't bother with desert!).

[i should add that after a later visit i was seriously ill. one of those horrible nights when you don't know whether to sit on the toilet or bend over it - from which orifice will i next spray half-digested food?]

normandie (providencia 1234)

hmmm. never visit a good restaurant twice. the first time we went here, just a few weeks ago, i thought it was great - i even vowed to buy a glass of wine next time we went (silly prices, at 1.500 a glass, compared to the delicious food). for about 10.000 i had pisco sour, tagliatelle and a coke and pauli had chicken, vegetables and a coke. the food was great - rich, creamy, tasty, french style food. fair sized portions and friendly service (and pate and bread for free starters).

so, a few weeks later, we make an excuse to go again. this time i ordered pork with a hindu (indian) sauce, veg garnish, and cous-cous. pauli has rabbit in wine with rice. but mine came without the veg. when i asked why, i was told it was only little and they don't bother when someone orders an accompaniment (cous-cous). the cous-cous was ok, but there wasn't much of it. nor was there that much pork. and no veg. so screw that - i didn't order the wine and won't be going back. pity. try el txoko alaves instead.

motto pizza (las condes, around 7000)

this is a tiny place, with a terribly scruffy outside, in the run of shops opposite tavelli, between bio-med and the pet shop. we'd just looked in at the new pizza place that has replaced le fournil, but kept walking toward town. the next pizza place (pazza?) looked pretty good, but we continued another 100 yards and tried this place instead. there's maybe 4 small tables inside and stairs leading up to a roof space, but we're not sure if that's where people live, or a second floor to eat. the decoration is decaying 60s eclectic - faded paintings of demurely naked babes with afros.

at first we were the only people, but later another couple, younger than us, and nervous together, bundled in. i'm not sure who will eat here - it's too scruffy for most people around here. maybe workers get lunch here during the week. anyway, it was open friday evening, early (8ish).

i had a glass of beer, pauli a coke, and we were given some peanuts and raisins. the menu had quite a selection, all at the same price, and you can assemble pizza by the quarter, so we had a medium pizza to share, with toppings of onion, tuna, artichoke, and anchovies (a quarter each, with cheese, tomato). it's all made on the spot, fresh. the crust was thin and crispy and it tasted really good. tuna, particularly, seems to make good pizza.

we didn't have pudding or coffee - the total, before tip, was 5.700 for us both. bargain!

el toro (bellavista)

a bit apart from the main restaurant area, this is currently a trendy place to eat - you can see the rich kids of santiago wearing the latest fashions (apparently dickensian is in, seriously!).

anyway, the prices were ok, from what i remeber, and the service friendly, with a selection of food that included vegetarian options. but... my canelloni were cold. two canelloni, stuffed with ricotta and spinach, came on an earthenware dish so hot the sauce was sizzling. and yet, inside, the cheese was icy cold. i know - i should have sent it back. at first i had this idea that the dish and sauce would warm it through. and then i'd eaten so much it seemed odd not to have already complained. so maybe it's my fault. or they could just do their job properly, already.

pasta pazza (las condes, around 7200)

i had pizza here, shared with a friend (big pizzas). it was kind of boring, although the base was nice and crispy. but what looked was the pasta. pauli had tagliatelli with a spicy tomato sauce and claimed it was as good as it looked. pasta and sauces - both made locally - are also available to take away.

lower priced than most of the eateries in las condes (but with a service to match - no wine by the glass, and beer by the litre bottle). this might just have been a three-star if i'd had the pasta.

cap ducal (suecia, providencia)

well, i've been remiss in not writing places up recently. meantime, we've moved to providencia so there's not going to be many more reviews of eateries in las condes here.

anyway, this place was great. we went to celebrate my birthday and it was one of the best meals out i've had. posh enough to be special, but not as expensive as we expected. and the pudding...

so, we began with something to drink. i had a pisco sour and pauli a fruit juice. the pisco sour was good - tangy with little bits of lemon floating round. the real thing. for starters we shared a warm plate of fish, meat and vegetables, in salty juice. delicious, and no problem with sharing a starter - a plate each and the starter in the middle to share. there must have been bread and butter too (no pebre though!).

next, main course. i was now on a dinky little bottle of chardonay (very good) and pauli on another juice or coke. pauli had swordfish with a tomato sauce and some rice (the menu had those fancy home made crisp things, but, well, you know how it is). i had a fish i'd never heard of before - apparently from northern waters (cojinaova), and a curious tasty mix between a "normal" white fish with flaky flesh, and a darker, meatier fish like tuna or swordfish. in a tarragon sauce, with a side order of roast potatoes. heaven.

normally i don't have pudding. but it was my birthday. so after we'd virtuously declined we called the waiter back and changed our minds. pauli has a creme caramel and i ordered the chocolate and orange tart. it arrived, and looked like the usual fudgy chocolate goo, albeit not a very large portion. but when i started eating - real orange! candied strips of orange and some kind of liquor. ahhhh...

perhaps best of all, was the bill. we'd splashed out for an exceptionally nice meal. the main courses were expensive (around 5.000 each). yet the total was just 24.000. including the wine, pudding, starters, extra side dish (if you're comparing with other prices here, remember we normally skip pudding and alcohol). we went through the itemised menu - nothing else seemed to match the price of the main courses. the pisco was 1.000 - for a place like that you'd expect 1.500 or 2.000. the pudding was 1.200 - for a place like that, you might expect to pay 2 or 3.000! even the wine was an honest price (1.500 for one of those tiny bottles that has two glasses of wine). we're going again.

lili marleen (nr salvador w rancagua)

hmmm. odd, perhaps slightly disturbing surroundings, but very good, homely, food.

the name is rather odd (if you don't know your history - i didn't til i googled for info - lili marleen was a german actress who was decidedly anti-nazi, helping the allied troops during the second world war). perhaps it was chosen specifically to fend off accusations of german nationalism, because this place is most decidedly germanic. you sit beneath a photo of the kaiser (i presume), listening to military marches... (the card we have claims ambience, decoration and music from the 1920s).

and, this being santiago, i'm sure it's frequented buy a bunch of people with german roots. some no doubt questionable. while we were there only two other people were eating, talking in a mixture of german and spanish, but two large tables were reserved.

anyway, enough of the political speculation and people-watching. what about the food? here, at least, things are clear cut - delicious, but not for the vegetarian or calorie-conscious.

the starters we shared weren't that great, actually - i'd forgotten about them 'til i needed to write this paragraph. ricotta cheese on black bread. but then we chose it more because it was easy to share than for the food, which was perhaps silly.

sharing continued for the main course. pauli ordered bratwurst and i gammon steak (i believe that's the right translation - lomo kasler). since pauli got two sausages and i got two large pieces of boiled (at least, so it seemed - although the menu said it was cooked in the oven) ham we ended up with a sausage and a piece of pork each.

for side dishes (which would probably have come on the plate, only the friendly service asked if we'd prefer them to share) we had fried potatoes (with bits of bacon!) and stewed red cabbage.

the wurst were tasty, the gammon so deliciously succulent i didn't bother chopping off the little bits of fat, the potatoes and bacon perfect and the cabbage had just the right balance of sweeteness and spice.

we declined pudding, but didn't refuse the "bajativos" (liquers) that came for free. to drink, we both had apple juice (not freshly squeezed, but better quality than normal boxes - perhaps the kind you find in glass bottles (for chileans, we're not talking watt's, but the apple and pear juice you can get at jumbo)).

good, solid comfort food. in fact, the surroundings and the food reminded me of my grandparents. who are english. it's odd, and sobering, to think that 80 years is a larger difference than nationality. people who went to war twice in a generation are now almost indistinguishable.

and the price? 12.400 for two main courses, juice, and a starter.

(pauli wants to add that the service was particularly good - friendly without being overpowering).

sakura fusion (vitacura)

we went here one saturday lunchtime, armed with a card that offered 10 percent off the price.

i was torn between ordering a plate of "fusion" cooking and sharing some sushi with pauli. in the end i went with the sushi, which was probably a mistake, since really i'm not that keen on the stuff.

not that there was anything wrong with it - tasty chunks of fish, a variety of rolls, fresh ginger, even a little chewy octopus. there was also some good, salty miso soup for starters.

(pauli adds that there were some of thse sticks of "bread" with a nice pate on the table for appetizers)

i can't remember the price, but it was pretty reasonable. i just wish i'd tried something else from the menu (which included a mix of western, thai, and japanese cooking, if i remember correctly).

need to go again.

[later: this has turned into a fairly regular place for us. the non-sushi food is good, but you don't get great big helpings. the seared tuna is particularly good. promoted to three stars.]

boca (orrego lucia nr providencia)

this place calls itself a bistro, but it's more like a bar that serves surprisingly good cooking (the menu, for example, has maybe 8 pages of drinks and two of food).

we were there early, almost alone, apart from the people who worked there and, apparently, a group of trendy friends. so the ambience felt a bit odd (it's a tiny place, so one person feels like they're sitting in a passage). and seeing that the wine per glass was being sold at the same price as spirits didn't help.

drinks in bars here are expensive - 2.000 or 3.000 a glass - and it feels very odd to pay that for a glass of wine when it could buy a whole bottle at the supermarket.

but the menu looked promising. i ordered salmon in orange sauce with cous-cous and ratatouille; pauli, ham and mushrrom risotto. while we waited we were brought little triangles of toast.

thankfully, the food, when it arrived, was delicious. the "ratatouille" in my order sounded odd - what arrived were mixed diced vegetables, which made much more sense, since they too were mixed with the orange sauce. the salmon was seared on the outside, tasty inside, and the cous-cous was almost perfect (perhaps a little salty).

pauli was equally happy with a pile of very gooey risotto.

the bill was 13.500 (before tip) for two main courses, the cheapest(!) glass of wine (which was nicely chilled - so often it's not cold enough) and a coke. i would have been happy to pay a little more for the food if the wine was more reasonable. that - and the fact that i had quite unpleasant indigestion afterwards, on the night bus to la serena - make this 3 rather than 2 stars. but the food was great.

(ps they may have had veggie options on the menu - i forgot to check, now being an omnivore...)

dim sum (pedro de valdivia, providencia)

(or maybe a little bit more)

i've updated this review in the past and am now re-writing it after visiting again with my parents last night. it seems to get better and better (although the price is perhaps creeping higher too).

we had the fixed price "all you can eat" option - 5.000 per head, for a bowl of rice and a regular supply of dim sum. with three fruit juices, a glass of wine, pisco sour, tea for two and a pudding (see below) the price was $31.000 before a tip, for four.

the dim sum here were always pretty varied - and often only very vaguely related to the traditional dim sum i've had in london's china town - and last night had the most variety yet. some were a little odd (the melon balls with ham in hot sauce were "surprising" and the vegetables in a transparent packet not unlike an envelope full of dry grass), but i'll happily try anything when the average level is so high.

the best remains the dumplings. mouth-sticky globs of tasty fillingness. but the mini kebabs (how is that dim sum? and who cares?) were a great new entry. the congrio and ginger parcels also met with approval from the rest of the table.

the service was good (and gringo-parent-friendly), too.

it's rare for me to mention sweets here because we don't normally have any. but when the sweet trolley appeared, dad's eyes popped. ater translating everything (no mean feat - there are some ambitious, complicated puddings here) he settled on a meringue nest filled with warm raspberries, topped with a raspberry and vanilla (i think) ice cream, rolled in almonds, with a chocolate sauce and decorations. that's a pretty impressive desert for chile. in a "chinese" restaurant it's mind-blowing.

you can find this restaurant on pedro de valdivia between providencia and costanero (andres bello). the presentation is traditional dim sum - little baskets with a selection of goodies. if you eat from the menu, you pay for what you take. they also have noodles and soups.

update - this closed around march!

ebano (plaza nuñoa)

the day before going away to tucson for 3 weeks, we decided to wrap things up with a beer at bhb(?) and then dinner at ebano. this is the first time we've eaten at plaza nuñoa and we really need to go there more often - it's not far, has a whole pile of places, and seems really popular.

there was a special offer in all(?) the plaza restaurants that gave wine at reduced prices, so i had steak in mushroom sauce with string chips, with a class of veramonte cabernet s; pauli had paella with a chirimoya juice.

while the environment was good - fashionable, but relaxed, and buzzing - the service was just ok - we didn't get bread (with tasty curried butter) until just before our meal and, at one point, received someone else's food. just kind of disorganised, not unfriendly or bad.

the food was ok. pretty good, really. pauli's paella looked a bit odd to me - a timbal of rice surrouded by seafood sauce - but she liked it, although it was a bit salty. my fillet was ok too - a bit overcooked and the string chips were rather greasy, but that's what i asked for. the mozarella cheese was on the menu too, though i somehow missed it (why do people put cheese on steaks and fish here?!) and the mushroom sauce tasty, but, again, too salty.

to finish, i nursed my wine (what with the beer at bhb (happy hour!) i was feeling close to my limit), while pauli had a small espresso with just a drop of milk. not bad, necesarily, but not what you expect when you order a capuccino, in chile at least.

the final price was just over $12.000. maybe this deserved two stars - it was a really good night, but i think that was us, making the best of our last day together, and not the food.

soya (carmencita 13, las condes)

i really wanted this to be 3 stars. it's got cool decor and a menu that's really trying to be different. in, generally, a good way. the food wasn't quite there, but if you're veggie, particularly, and are bored with what's available elsewhere, it's a damn good option.

we both wish we'd tried the soups. next time.

so, what's all the fuss about? for my birthday we went out for a meal (of course). to soya. which looked a bit posh, but we went in anyway. and were given seats at a low table. so low that we would have been better sitting on the floor really. which means it's pretty cool, right? and it had nice decor - modern, clean. and there were three bread sticks - long, handmade, arranged like stems in a minimal flower decoration. and a great sauce to dip them in

the menu was pretty cool too. so cool i doubt it will survive in santiago. but pauli has a theory - born out during the night - that they are catering for the thin blond women that live in las condes. she's probably right.

back to the menu. this place has three kinds of food. salads, sushi and soup (the alliteration isn't quite there in the spanish). and they all sounded interesting.

i went with a potato salad - the contents included potatoes, artichoke hearts, olives, dills, egg, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and a honey based sauce (i hope i have the details right). which describes what i received. but, somehow, what i ended up eating was a bed of lettuce with a fairly heavy potato salad that didn't have much zip. despite the ingredients, there was no variety. something didn't quite work out.

pauli asked for some sushi rolls. i can't remember exactly what they contained, but i thought they tasted pretty good - and certainly unlike any sushi roll i've had before (deep fried in batter - but lighter than that sounds!). the main drawback with pauli's plate, i think, was that it simply wasn't that much to eat (it was presented as a main course, and contained 8 fairly thin slices/rolls).

the drinks, however, were excellent. i had a "lemonade" with raspberry and mint. the flavours balanced perfectly. pauli had a mix of apple, orange and some other juice (sorry!) - again, balanced so that no one flavour dominated.

so my salad was pretty filling, but i think pauli could have eaten more. we both loved the drinks, but neither of us was ecstatic with our main courses. and the thin blond women kind of bugged us.

final price, just under 11.000 excluding the tip.

[updated later - we went again, and had the soup. again, it sounded better on the menu than it actually was (very thin and watery). and the juices didn't seem as good either. so it's staying at two stars.]

agua na boca (tobalaba w carlos antunez, providencia)

(a little bit more, really)

yummy. nice to find a three-star place again.

for a month or so, i've been yearning for a good burger. not meat, but burger. there's a certain taste. a certain brute satisfaction. you've craved it too, right?

so pauli suggested this place. it's an odd mix - we went in the evening, and it looks like a small restaurant. oil lamps on the tables, romantic music, decent selection of wines. but... it serves burgers. sandwiches and pancackes too, but burgers are the first thing on the menu. and really, for a burger, it's not that cheap.

but it's a burger. i had the "picante", which wasn't spicy at all, but chock full of gherkins. delicious. the bun was flatter and wider than i expected, and the burger thinner and wider too, in proportion. it worked, but don't expect a big mouthful of bread or a chunky, meaty pattie.

reading that, it doesn't sound that great. but if you want a burger (the giant hotdog sounded good too, and pauli's tuna sandwich was judged good) in decent surroundings, this is an excellent solution.

the price, for a burger, sandwich, fruit juice and bottle of beer was 9.200 before tip. veggie options were limited.

casa vieja (av chile españa, providencia, nr ñuñoa)

no idea how this place has missed an entry here before.

this is a regular place of ours. in the summer it's pretty busy and needs a reservation, but last week it was less than half full.

decent chilean food. what more to say? good service, friendly owner, reasonable prices. a regular place.

tapas bar (providencia)

i think this place would be better on a night, with a bunch of friends - something we should try and, hopefully, shift this to three stars.

but just the two of us, on a saturday (sunday?) lunchtime, found the place a bit empty, unfriendly (kind of cold), and not that great value.

how does it work? each table is covered with a paper sheet printed with a large selection of tapas. you order a drink and the food you'd like. pauli had a sandwich, i had three different pieces of bread with different toppings (each priced around 900, i think).

being more a bar than a restaurant, the wine was expensive - a glass costing little less than a bottle in the supermarket down the road. and the food was ok, but, well, not that memorable. writing a few weeks later i can recall that pauli's sandwich looked rather empty, but apparently tasted good, while one of my toppings was fridge-cold, but the parma ham was pretty decent.

to try again, on a night, with friends.

le flaubert (providencia)

i'm not really sure why i'm not giving this place three stars. something bugged me. i don't think it was the salt - we both noticed it, but it was hardly unpalatable. and i don't think it was the service, although for some reason it felt rather haphazard. unstable even. as though the person who served us was about to run into the back and start cooking.

maybe we were just nervous, because this is a fairly fancy restaurant. pretensions at french food and prices higher than we normally consider (around 7,000 for a main course).

in fact, it's not that expensive. comparable to cap ducal - the main courses are more expensive here, but they're sufficient in themselves (no need to add a side order). so the damage, before tip, was 20.000 for a plate each, two glasses of wine, a diet coke and - extra indulgance - a pudding.

before i get to the food, i should mention the ambience - it was pretty good. relaxed, informal. "like a real restaurant" according to pauli. yet somehow, as i've already said, i felt a bit odd. maybe because i was sitting with my back to the door/shop (foodies - maybe you can buy fancy french ingredients here). or perhaps because there was nowhere to put my feet under the table(!).

ok, the food. i had a albacora with those little green salty vegetable things whose english name i can no longer recall. cooked in butter and served with creamed spinach. everything was just fine, although the portions were rather modest, and the salt everywhere took the edge off the little green doodahs. the spinach was tasty - buttery, with little pieces of fried potato on top as a crunchy contrast.

pauli had stewed rabbit with boiled potatoes. good.

i had the pudding - a kind of chocolate ice-cream. home made, i would guess, because it was very cocoay. good again.

so the food is decent - a bit more special than normal. and the environment is pleasant. the prices aren't that high, for the quality of food (if not the portions). everything kind of special, nothing obviously bad. almost three stars.

fuego vivo (pucon, region ?)

pucon is a strange place; a typical (ie not that wealthy) small chilean town, with a main street that contains shops and hotels as fancy as you'll find in santiago. it's an international holiday resort and i was staying in one of those hotels while my partner helped organise an astronomy conference.

on my last evening there i managed to tear her away from work long enough to go for a meal somewhere. fuego vivo (fuegovivo - one word?) is perhaps the most expensive place in town, but only by a small distance - there are a handful of other places, catering to tourists, wih similar prices but lower pretensions.

so my reasoning was - if we're paying a lot, we might as well try the place with a more interesting menu. luckily, that made sense. this was a real pleasure.

the table came with bread, a mushroom concoction, and pate. while i was enjoying the pate (decent, dry, tasty, smooth) the mushrooms disappeared down paulina. she said they were good.

i ordered a starter - a rabbit burrito. it came cut in half, with two plates, so we could share - the service was friendly, considerate, and rapid. the burrito itself was more like a fried roll, presented as two spires, with a dollop of chunky guacamole in the middle. delicious.

there was some confusion about soft drinks - i think they were simply admitting that the juices were not freshly squeezed but (as is almost universal) made from frozen puree. anyway, pauli ended up with a diet coke. i asked if wine was available by the glass and was offered some errazuriz corton: a decent mid/low price wine and the kind of thing i'd drink at home, way better than the usual "table red" from a box, but not that cheap (1,900 for a glass - more than half the price of a bottle).

for main courses pauli had baked trout with tomato and onion, and i followed the waiter's suggestion with a selection of three different pastas. the trout was very fishy - pauli approved - and came layered with slabs of roasted tomato and onion, steeped in a nutty juice.

i was worried that my plate would be too heavy, with the ravioli and spinach roll both in cheese sauces, but thankfully the pastas themselves were light and tasty enough to keep a balance. the ravioli contained (i think) parma ham, and the spinach roll was amazingly fresh and full of flavour. down the middle of the plate was a red river of gnocchi with bolognese sauce (not eaten that since i was a child!); small, light, potato pieces in tangy tomato and mince.

we knew some people at another table who, as they left, said that everything had been delicious - we concurred. a great variety of flavours and textures, with care in the presentation. and the damage? 17.300 before the tip.

one final note - this seems to be associated with "cafe p", so that would also be worth trying.

lomiton (providencia, guardia vieja)

ah, lomiton. i'm ambivalent about this place. on the one hand, it's a noisy fast food-ish chain, cookie-cutter identical from one place to the next. on the other, it's a chilean chain, in decline, that remains somehow innocent, much like schop-dog (which i notice i never wrote a review for...)

i had a burger. pretty good. pretty much like a burger should be.

(and here, several months later, i see that i had intended to write more. ah well....)

caramaño (bellavista, purísima)

(almost 2?)

we went here last night - i wanted to eat some meat, and pauli had been reminded of this place by an article somewhere. it's down to one side of bellavista, away from the noise, and there was another spanish place a bit earlier on the road, which looked like it could be worth a visit.

from the start, this place was pretty promising. we were early, so there weren't many people at first, but it hits the right spot between cheap and expensive - cloth tablecloths, scruffy photocopy menu. if you've eaten in a few place in this country, you probably know what i mean...

i started with a pisco sour, pauli had a vaina. they were a decent price and pretty good; nothing amazing, but more than serviceable. some bread, pebre and - nice touch - tiny sopaipillas.

the menu was the usual decent chilean fare. pauli chose fish of some kind (and ensalada chilean); i spotted chorizos and ask for them `a lo pobre', which is a bit odd, but no problem. when the food came (quite quickly), it was good, although i was concerned that i only had two sausages, when the menu had said three (as pauli pointed out, there wasn't that much room on the plate).

you can't really go wrong with chorizo a lo pobre, and they didn't. it hit the spot. the onions were particularly good, and the chips nice and fat. pauli said her fish was pretty good too. the wine, by the glass, was ventisquero (cab s, varietal), which is pretty decent for the price.

so everything had been pretty solid, but i was worried about my missing sausage, and the prices seemed, perhaps, a bit steep for what we had. i wanted this to be good, but was worried....

...with no reason. when the bill came it was less than i expected. not sure what happened with the fish, but someone had noted that there were just two sausages and charged me 2/3 the price! the final bill (with drinks to start, a glass of wine, and two main courses, was $11,000. sweet!

cordon vert (providencia, pedro de valdivia)

ate here with friends, one evening. paulina and i had tried to visit earlier, but it was always closed, so i'm unsure exactly when it opens. anyway, we were the only people there on a thursday night.

the menu was surprising, for a place in providencia, just down from liguria. less expensive than i expected. i had a veggie burger with salad and a lemonade to drink (the handmade kind, with ginger). pauli had tofu and vegetables.

the food was ok. for the price, and vegetarian, i guess it was pretty good - pauli's tofu was excellent, really, but my burger just a bit kind of mushy and thin and not that tasty. something didn't click.

and then the added the tip directly to the bill, which is kind of odd here (so odd, it's kind of sneaky, because you're very tempted to tip on top, even when you've checked the price several times). for the four of us, single courses, it came to just over 14.000 before tip.

cafe torres (alameda, centro)

15.000 for a sandwich?! well, that's a little unfair. we started with a couple of juices (the usual "fresh from frozen"), then had some tiny sopaipillas with a very tasty pebre for starters.

i had a cahcarero (slices of fried beef with green beans and green chilli - a traditional chilean sandwich and a favourite of mine); pauli had a vegetariano (quesillo, palmitos, tomatoes, green beans). both were very good. i had a tobayo (pale ale) and pauli finished with a coffee.

so the food was good - one of the best chacareros i've had, very tasty, with plenty of meat (no stringy bits) and a good "bite" from the chilli. and the environment was vey nice - cloth on the table, cloth napkins, mirror on the walls, traditional, with an argentinian ambience (and a stage with a piano, someone mentioned tango at some point). the service was friendly and corteous.

why not three stars? well, it was expensive, and the portions could have been a bit bigger, perhaps. but mainly i didn't like the owner, who greeted us on entry, but seemed rather unfriendly. his reaction to the idea that we wanted sandwiches was so odd i asked whether they served them, or whether we would be better going elsewhere. his family seemed to be eating there, too, and when he sat with them, he kept staring across at us. all a bit odd.

but if you avoid the owner, and the price isn't a problem (before tip it was 13.500 for the above), this is a very nice place, with good, traditional food.