Bogota activity / restaurant recommendations?

Hi Rhys

Matt Jones (Matts Planet was there…..here is a link to his video

https://youtu.be/OSJRyOsV_qk?si=nH_Sa-Kef7A94boc

Worth a watch!

It’s worth doing a walking tour of the downtown area (La Candelaria) during the day. Personally not an area I’d be in after dark! I haven’t been but some colleagues enjoyed a trip out to the salt cathedral

can’t recommend anywhere specific but Zona Rosa / Zona T will have plenty of very decent high end options for cocktails and food right by the Four Seasons Bogota and Chaperino/Zona G near the other one, traffic can be horrible so it’s worth arranging plans according to your hotels

Uber works there and I used another taxi app Tappsi. Both accept credit card in the app. Though the quality of cars can be very variable (Uber is better) so long trips e.g. downtown better to arrange something via the hotel, there wasn’t much of a mark up on any trips I took that way

@SamG just reminded me that the concierge at GH suggested I hire a private chauffeur through the hotel, cca $30 per day for 10 hours a day incl. petrol. I ended up doing a private day tour, but this can be a good value.

Traffic can be terrible so built extra time when moving around.

Bogotá restaurants

Prudencia
El Chato
Hacienda Maracay
Leo
Tabula

Some of the recommendations from a friend that lives there:

Vitto
Le Grand (I tried this place for breakfast and still miss its pastries. Highly recommended)
Llórente
Toscana

She also said Attik is a popular spot for drinks

When I was there she insisted in going to Andres Carme de Res which is a very quirk chain that does all sort of Colombian specialties in very funky settings. It is one of those places that you either love or hate but can be fun to try just once.

If you get out of Bogota, check out the rest of this amazing country.

The place is very well-touristed these days but anything outside of Medellin and Bogota sees significantly fewer gringos.

The coffee region is lovely especially if you want to spend a few days hiking from Salento to Ibaque over Tolima.

The south including San Augustin, Pasto, Popayan and the beautiful church at Ipiales.

The Amazon is as good as you get in Peru and Brazil.

I don’t like the Caribbean cost but some people do, the smaller places like Palomino, Tayrona and near to Venezuala are lovely.

I also really like the countryside around Bucaramanga and the whole length of the Valle de Cauca.

For some typical good food (and not expensive) try Tolù in La Plaza de Mercado de la perseverancia. It won the award for the best Ajiaco.
Also Doña Elvira at Cll 50 # 20-26 comes highly recommended.

Tamales for breakfast if you can.
Mango biche for typical street snack (school kids buy this at break time)

If you want the equivalent of a Full English, find a place that offers a good bandeja paisa – although really you should be in Medellin for this.

Patacones and sancocho (soup) are great, and when out and about grab a pandebono, have arepas with cheese and add honey, buñuelos are traditional Xmas fare but should still be able to find some.

For beer try the BBC (Bogotá Beer Company)
Otherwise the Club Colombia Oro/Roja/Negra are good amber/brown/dark beers.
Águila is lager and better for the hot coastal region where you just need refreshing (and they mix it with Kola Roman, a bit like our shandy, but instead of lemonade it’s a vimto lookalike and bright red in colour).
For soft drink try the aguapanela or some of the many fruit juices (lulo, guanábana, tomate de árbol, coroso…)

If you go to a Caribbean restaurant make sure to have plátano and arroz con coco with your fish dish.

On the dessert front, try bocadillo which is guava paste, often sandwiched with arequipe (dulce de leche), and definitely try the postre de tres leches!

cin3 wrote:

BBC has gone downhill in the last decade. There are now exciting craft beer options actually available.

It would feel very very wrong to eat a bandeja paisa in Bogota and I can’t think of anywhere that does a good one.

I think pandebono, bunelos, patacones, tamales and Colombian arepas are amongst some of the worst food in the world. Their soups especially the ajiaco are excellend though.

You obviously haven’t tried any good ones then, bunuelos, patacones and arepas are all sold in other countries where people have a much bigger choice of alternatives, yet they sell well. I know our local colombian eatery has now expanded to two locations here and is planning its third later this year…

cin3 wrote:

I think pandebono, bunelos, patacones, tamales and Colombian arepas are amongst some of the worst food in the world.

This is one of those “what in the world?!” comments you see once in a while. Then he/she goes onto correctly state some very nice fruit so I do not know if he/she was initially trolling.

zapato1060 wrote:

cin3 wrote:

I think pandebono, bunelos, patacones, tamales and Colombian arepas are amongst some of the worst food in the world.

This is one of those “what in the world?!” comments you see once in a while. Then he/she goes onto correctly state some very nice fruit so I do not know if he/she was initially trolling.

Not remotely trolling, I’m 100% serious. They are objectively bad and part of the reason why Colombian food has such a poor reputation in Latin America. Just bland boring stodge. Other countries’ versions are often better e.g. tamales can be very good in Mexico but patacones are almost always bad as are arepas even the better Venezuelan ones.

Luckily there’s tons of amazing food in Colombia beyond these.

meta wrote:

I’ve certainly had fresh guanabana, goayaba, maracuyá, feijoa outside Colombia…

Pray tell where? I’ve guanabana in some places outside the tropics and maybe something similar to a Colombian maracuyá but can’t recall seeing most of the others in Europe for example.

Arepa paisa (mostly eaten in the centre of Colombia like Medellin) are quite insipid when compared to the arepa con huevo of the Caribbean (maybe that one is closer to the Venezuelan version?)

Colombian food can be a little more bland than that of Mexico or Peru but is by no means bad.