Traditional Cuisine

Delectable ingredients, prepared using time-honored recipes and techniques, seasoned with our ancestral identity: these are the elements which merge in Chile’s unique culinary landscape. Let your senses guide you and enjoy sampling the intense flavors of Chile´s rich lands and seas.

Savor delicious quinoa-based dishes from the cultures and lands of the north, and marvel at the range of tropical fruits grown in hot, fertile valleys on the edge of the Atacama desert.

In the central heartlands, soak up the huaso (cowboy) atmosphere and rural traditions with classic empanadas and corn-based dishes, like pastel de choclo and humitas. In the summer, cool off with a delicious mote con huesillo; a cold, sweet concoction of wheat, dried peaches and syrupy fruit juice, perfect on baking hot days.

Superb fish and seafood are the main attraction, without a doubt, on Chile’s long coast. The variety is immense: seafood lovers will enjoy conger eel stew, razor clams a la parmesana (topped with a grilled parmesan crust), and scallops al pil pil (in a chilli-laced olive oil), to name but a few of our best-loved dishes.

In the south of Chile, you’ll find hearty casseroles like the ever-popular cazuela, Mapuche catutos (from the Mapundung language, wheat-based bread), and tortillas de rescoldo, a traditional ash-baked bread. Chiloé’s most emblematic dish is curanto, a medley of seafood, meat and potatoes baked underground on hot stones. And if you’re heading for Patagonia, don’t miss the southern king crab and the famous Magellan lamb ‘al palo’ (a whole flame-roasted beast). Truly a feast for the senses!