15 Best Restaurants in Santiago, Chile

Simple but creative dishes using the best and freshest Chilean ingredients appeal to local office workers and visitors alike at this popular downtown spot, where lunch patrons often enjoy a sandwich or soup-salad combo. The menu changes seasonally, with dishes like chicken cashew curry and venison with caponata sharing menu space with grilled bass and chia polenta cake. The restaurant has a good cocktail list, and a short yet decent wine list and does upper-crust business lunches. It is open for early dinners (until 9 pm). Reservations are advisable for lunch, particularly for an outside table.

A haven with wine aficionados, trendy Bocanariz in Lastarria has Chilean fare, but it's best known as a superior place to sample vino chileno. Waitstaff at this tastefully designed and somewhat romantic venue are all sommeliers, and they serve 300 wines on any given evening, many by the glass or small pour. Sample a themed flight of wine, such as huaso named for the Chilean cowboy. The menu separates out food types by notes such as smoky, spiced, citrus, light, creamy, herbed, and sweet. Ask to see the cellar.

Concept meets Chilean ingredients (many of which are foraged from the Andes and the length of the coast) at this award-winning establishment, where diners enjoy a 15- to 18-step tasting menu that has sustainability at its core. One of Chef Rodolfo Guzmán's signature dishes is a spin on the curanto clambake from Chiloé, made with Patagonian rainwater and served in what looks like a small clearing in a tiny thicket. Naturally, such fine dining comes at a price; the tasting menu costs about 90,000 pesos. Add on 55,000 pesos for wine pairings.

One of Santiago's original quality coffee purveyors, Colmado is where you order a Colombian Chemex teamed with gourmet bites such as Spanish sausage and cheeses, regular and gluten-free sweets or tasty vegan sandwiches. Tucked inside a leafy courtyard, Colmado attracts local caffeine addicts and visitors alike; brunch is especially popular.

Originally inspired by Laura Esquivel's romantic 1989 novel Like Water for Chocolate, this Bellavista standout focuses on Chilean dishes made with "life, love, vigor, and passion" as per the book. Reserve the "bed table" if you want to be showy (it has a headboard but is not actually a bed).

Opened in 1879, this is the oldest restaurant still operating in Chile and remains one of the city's most traditional dining rooms, with red-leather banquettes, mint-green ceramic floors, and huge chandeliers with tulip-shaped globes. Classic dishes such as lomo al ajo arriero (sirloin sautéed with peppers and garlic) are menu staples; if you're after a quick bite, order the Sandwich Barros Luca, as this is where it was created. This restaurant also has a branch for snacks in the Centro Cultural La Moneda, and another on upscale Isidora Goyenechea in El Golf (Las Condes).

Behind an anonymous-looking front door lies this charming restaurant, a short drive south of Santiago Centro. Choose your table from the various salons, including the adorable patio or a more private dining space, then pick your dishes from the short yet eclectic blackboard. Run by a husband-and-wife team, Chef Javier Avilés cooks seasonally and simply, allowing the ingredients sourced from small producers to shine. Starters might include wild boar with garlic flowers and yolk or jerky pâté while mains could be lamb with polenta and blackberries. 

This tucked-away two-story downtown lunch spot offers unmissable weekday set menus with appetizer, main dish, iced tea, and choice of coffee or dessert for 9,900 pesos. Dishes adopt modern spins on Chilean and international favorites, such as grain salad with mote (hulled wheat kernels), beef carpaccio, kidneys in cream sauce, or spinach-filled pasta. The kitchen takes a sustainable approach, so there are plenty of dishes that use offal. Vegetarians also have options here, though the protein dishes are more adventurous.

This restaurant inside the sophisticated Hotel Plaza San Francisco serves creative seafood dishes like marinated scallops over octopus carpaccio and cold tomato-and-pepper sauce. Frequented by local business people, Bristol has won several awards and often makes it onto top lists in local media. It's not as well illuminated as it could be and doesn't have much of a view, but what you've got on your plate should make up for it.

Small sharing plates with Asian flair plus a fantastic cocktail list make for a fun and tasty experience at Demencia. Chef Benja Nast plays with colors and flavors (think: scallops in a fresh herb salsa with a chili pepper kick). Sister project to the fine dining restaurant De Patio upstairs, the restaurant's location on the main avenue means it can be noisy, but the music covers much of the traffic.

A Chilean institution, this 70-year-old fast-food chain is impeccably clean, and the service is fast and friendly. It's the place to try an Italiano (a hot dog with tomatoes and avocado) or chacarero (hot dog or beef sandwich with green beans, tomato, and chili pepper). Order a jugo de chirimoya (custard apple juice) with your hot dog and take a seat at the bar.

Evoking another time and place, El Mesón Nerudiano centers around traditional recipes, poetry, music, and live theater, all in homage to Chile's greatest poet, Pablo Neruda. A stone's throw from La Chascona, Neruda's house-turned-museum, this restaurant has a menu with Chilean favorites, including caldillo de congrio, a fish soup cooked from the recipe given in one of Neruda's poems.

Starting life as a canteen for local workmen, Galindo today draws artists and the young Bellavista crowd, who come for traditional Chilean fare in an old adobe house. Although it gets crowded, it's a great place to try traditional dishes like pastel de choclo or a hearty cazuela, a typical meat and vegetable soup.

Sporting views over Parque Bicentenario, this is a great spot for a leisurely lunch or a generous pisco sour as the sun sets between the hills in summer. The eclectic menu brings together some of the best of Chilean and Peruvian cuisine, with an emphasis on fish, as well as plateada, a slow-cooked cut of beef on a bed of mashed potatoes and basil.

Taking inspiration from ancestral dishes made in all the regions of Chile, there's a historical theme at Peumayén, where every meal starts with a colorful "bread basket," a slate plate with examples from the north to the south of Chile. Entrées designed for sharing include guanaco meat; horse meat, lamb, fish, and the much-celebrated potato continue the ancestral theme. The restaurant interior is part romantic, part rustic, and there's an agreeable plant-filled courtyard for outside dining in warmer months.