Feasting in La Paz, Bolivia
The staples of Bolivian food may be corn, potatoes, and beans but don’t judge them just so quickly. Perhaps the altitude, a cool 13,313 ft above sea level, adjusts the taste buds – and luckily everything tastes good here.
Although the landlocked country, the poorest in South America, has averaged a 4.8% growth in the last few years according to the World Bank, much of the country is largely undiscovered – particularly when it comes to food. The administrative capital, La Paz, has three metro areas that make up its 2.3 million residents and one thing they all have in common is an innate desire to eat everything local. And so a city, almost above the clouds, on the western side of Bolivia may seem like just another new hot spot on the world cuisine circuit but its street food, casual fine dining all whilst on their unique public transportation (in the form of cable car gondolas) have the connoisseurs of must-eat cities agog.
“It’s the biodiversity, the politics, the people, the economy – Bolivia just made sense from every perspective,” said Kamilla Seidler, the head chef at Gustu (the Bolivian outpost from the guys that brought us Noma that opened a few years ago) in La Paz’s southern side. Dane Claus Meyer, part money and part brains at Noma, wanted someone with Danish roots but some South American experience and therefore grabbed Seidler for this interesting role in La Paz. Hence why I added it to Wonderlust’s 10 most interesting restaurants in the world list for Bob Guccione.
As much as she’s in the kitchen, she is out of the kitchen managing the social impact of the business – which is in fact, the main thrust of everything that they do. Gustu - the quechua word for flavour - is a school, a restaurant, a logistics company, a delicacy outlet (under the name Q’atu that means marketplace), and there is also a hotel under construction. A mouthful.
*Seidler (who won Best Female chef Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants in 2016) recently moved back to Denmark to open her own gorgeous restaurant, Lola.
“At Gustu, we decided what we wanted to do is have a casual fine dining restaurant but all run by students - so to speak - with managers of course supervising,” said Seidler. What Gustu has done is work 100% with Bolivian products – from the coffee, to the wine all the way to the food. “It would have been absurd not to work with everything we have right around us,” said Seidler. “We don’t need to import a strange, weird fruit from Asia - we have that strange, weird fruit right here in Bolivia.” And this is exactly what the world is waking up to, thanks in part to countries like Bolivia and people like Seidler. In fact, Gustu’s “kilometer 0” policy strictly restricts the restaurant to work with products sourced inside Bolivia’s borders. In addition, they decided on a policy of only working with micro-producers, adding to the individuality of the experience.
And so Bolivian cuisine right now is not about reinterpreting “grandma” dishes - it’s really about finding the most extraordinary local ingredients available in some of the most remote parts of the world, and right in the city of La Paz. Seidler said, “We see it like this: if we find an amazing potato we will use it just like that, and let it speak for itself.” In Denmark, Noma fueled a total culinary revolution with just leeks and some cauliflower, and so it seems that Bolivia absolutely has the potential to become the next food center of the world.
Besides Gustu, and their school program in the neighboring city El Alto where they have roughly 650 students right now learning how to cook and sharing their knowledge about healthier eating with their families and communities, they also have a street food project called Suma Phayata (“well cooked”). The project is about the promotion of street food in La Paz and teaches vendors about hygiene basics and running a better shop; all to inspire more gastronomic tourists to come explore Bolivia. “It’s where the soul of the country is and many people still eat like this here,” said Seidler. Some of the ladies in the street food markets have been selling the same sandwich in the same way for over 52 years – testament to the quality of the product of course.
Street food in La Paz is all about the time of day. At breakfast certain things are sold, like saltenas (a Bolivian empanada, but with a slightly sweeter spicy sauce with chicken or pork) that is traditionally eaten “holding it like a pigeon” and humintas (the local version of tamales). Afternoons are for Bolivian pork sandwiches made with local pickles and chilies and if you’re going to drink anything it will be a batidos (milkshake). Luckily any time of the day is good for anticucho (flame grilled beef heart served with an exotic variant of potato and peanut sauce), rotisserie chicken (crumbed) served straight off the sidewalks and quinoa soup done a million ways. “It’s tradition to eat like this – it won’t change, it’s just the way it’s done,” said Seidler.
If you ask Seidler what the next big thing in food will be she says – the Amazon. “It’s the way we look at the sea, people think the Amazon is just a green spot but it has so much potential from fish to wild meats to all the crazy plants,” said Seidler. The Amazon, with all its mystery, can be sustainably harvested and thus improve the lives of indigenous people and of course bring awareness to the real fight – protecting the lungs of the world. Surely environmentalists and cooks can get together and agree on just this. And so perhaps the highs and lows of Bolivia can assist.