Peumayen Ancestral Food

Where? Peumayen Ancestral Food (Bellavista, Santiago, Chile) Map Menu

When? Friday November 24, 2023

Who? Me

Food Style? Elevated Traditional Chilean

Bellavista in Santiago is a pretty trendy and expensive-looking neighbourhood with fancy restaurants and worst of all, people on the street yelling at me to come into their restaurant. This restaurant I’ve chosen is very quiet and takes reservations online, and best of all, they answered in English when I tried to speak in Spanish. Sometimes that's not a positive, but it’s been exhausting trying to navigate the language barrier and that means I really need to step up my Spanish game. I’m by myself because the others wanted to try another restaurant I didn’t want to go to.

There’s a heavy emphasis on traditional Andean cuisine here. We’re talking about pre-colonisation Chile, really going back to the roots of this country and its history. I’m fascinated and excited at the same time, and I’ve gone for the Mix Origins Menu, a combination of land and seafood.


Of course, I’m going to enjoy a traditional pisco sour as well. Oh, and a lemonade so I don’t get too drunk off the pisco. They’ve given me some coco tea, commonly used to alleviate the effects of altitude sickness. I’m well acquainted with this, after my experiences in Peru.

Amuse Bouche

Spicy quinoa, garlic mayo
Mmm. Fluffy and piquant with a hint of creamy mayo to even it out.

Appetizers

I’ve barely had time to catch my breath when the starters arrive. The waitress explains everything to me and I absorb as much as I can. I have no idea what it’s all called but left to right represents north to south of the country, including Rapa Island - Easter Island. Each portion represents a different culture and is made with very traditional ingredients.
The first is doughy and heavy with a very earthy flavour. It’s made from quinoa flour. The chilli sauce is tart and brings the quinoa ball to life. The flour tortilla is the same as the one from the amuse bouche.
The second is pleasant and sweet, it tastes like moist but dense banana cake. I think it’s plantain.
The third is fried and appetising, crispy and fluffy inside. It’s potato. It goes best with the chilli sauce.
The fourth and fifth are white and green beans respectively is made from white bean. They're nice and tasty, but not as good as the potato croquette.
I really like the taste of honey on the sixth one, it’s very floral and brings out the sweetness in whatever I’ve just eaten.
The seventh one is another dense fried potato ball. I like the taste of this, the oil has captured some additional aromatics.

Starters

Corn pastry with azapa olives and cancha powder/Roasted paprika in kalatanta and goat cheese with ulmo honey/Crispy fried blood sausage and onion jam with red wine and merkén/Salmon tartare with mango and chañar sauce
Oh. These are the starters. Everything is so colourful and beautifully presented so you can see each individual element. The first is a delicious corn pudding with a bitter fruit on top to balance those flavours.
The second is a blood sausage. Normally not a fan of how overly rich blood sausage can be, but that sauce and sweet onion jam give a creaminess and sweetness to the crispy batter and it tastes fantastic.
The salad is simply dressed with vinegar to cleanse the palette for the next one, a goat cheese and peppers cracker. Wow this is good. That smokiness from the capsicum balances the saltiness from the cheese and the sweetness from honey.
The last one is salmon tartare. It’s got a sweet fruity sauce made from a tree in the north and plenty of red onion to give crunch and and some mango for acidity. I love it. It’s got some really complex flavour and it’s perfectly balanced.

The pisco is starting to hit.

Mains

Chochoca stuffed with creamy eggplant and mushroom sauce/Creamy mote with algarrobina pork and pickles/Smoked caldillo with shellfish and conger eel
Oh no, I sense mushroom. The first is chochoca stuffed with eggplant and mushroom with toasted corn. It needs a bit of seasoning, that thick dough isn’t doing it for me.
The second is pork with pickle and mustard seed on mushroom risotto. The pork is beautifully soft and sweet and sticky. I want to just pick it up with my hands and clean the bone, but the meat is soft enough for me to pry it off with the fork and knife. The mushroom risotto isn’t too strong and I chow it down as best as I can.
The last one is a seafood stew. It’s delicious and tastes very clean, and has a big hit of spice. The mussels are meaty and the star of the dish, the eel is soft and breaks away nicely with the spoon. I really like this, it’s fresh and appetising.

They wipe my table after taking the dish away and I can’t help but recall my time at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay where they would use the back of the knife to decrumb and iron the pristine white sheets.

Dessert

Mote with dried peach/Profiterole with lucuma and milk candy sauce with pisco/Papaya pie/Butter crumb, mango gel and melon gel
The first one I actually had earlier in the day. It’s common on the streets as a cooling drink, it’s very reminiscent of Chinese tong sui. It has wheat grain - they call this mote, and it's very similar to barley or rice - and dehydrated peach in a sweet liquid.
The profiterole is delicious and the lucuma is quite pleasant. I love the combinations with the mango and melon gels, they’re extremely tasty.
However the best is hands down the papaya pie. It’s so intensely flavored and that meringue helps add some sweetness to the tartness.

That was an intense and brief walkthrough of the entire country’s cuisine. So many interesting flavours and ingredients that I’ve never heard of, but also some familiar tastes since a lot of this produce has made it to all corners of the globe. I’ve tried to pace myself with the pisco but I'm feeling its effects pretty strongly, so I order another lemonade. That’s definitely helping. This has been a very pleasant experience, though a little pricey and pretentious.

Posted by Jeremy at 10:29am on Wednesday March 6, 2024 :: 0 comments ::