Salvo Patria

The Colombian Chefs Revitalizing the Country's Food Scene | Condé Nast Traveler

"Set in a nearby Chapinero mansion, this seasonal, waste-conscious restaurant evolved from a café into a national-identity project grounded in Colombian coffee and biodiversity. Founded in 2011 by barista Juan Manuel Ortiz after his experience in Melbourne, it rejected the country’s habit of drinking Nescafé or low-quality beans and instead embraced V60 drippers and high-quality domestic beans from small producers, turning Colombian coffee into a matter of national pride. In the kitchen, chef Alejandro Gutiérrez Vélez, who grew up near the coffee-growing Antioquia region and worked at Central in Lima, builds menus that consciously explore culinary multiculturalism and biodiversity as a way to keep people out of poverty and fight the violence arising from it. Dishes include Pacific tuna with chontaduro, the heart-shaped fruit of peach palms, and chargrilled cubios, ancient tubers from the northern Andes, served on a mash of corn husk sourced from a women’s cooperative in Montes de María, a former conflict zone in the Caribbean." - Stephanie Rafanelli