All Eyes On Santiago

Revitalized at long last, the Chilean capital - full of fresh seafood, incomparable produce, adventurous chefs, and national pride - is the world's next culinary hot spot.

- Shane Mitchell

In the lab above the dining room of his renowned restaurant, Boragó, Rodolfo Guzmán wants to show me his latest science experiment: carrot sticks injected with penicillin. They’ve grown furry and turned white.

“Their insides will become creamy and take on a cheesy flavor,” he assures me. “Like Camembert.”

The lab, in the upscale Vitacura district of Santiago, Chile, is outfitted with a galley kitchen, microscopes, piles of books—some on Patagonian cooking, others on alpine flowers of the Andes. “Menos es Más” is scrawled on a blackboard charting the decomposition of vegetables. Less is more.

This wiry, blue-eyed chef, who labored in obscurity until recently, may best personify Santiago’s new culinary scene. A botany enthusiast, he conducts epic foraging expeditions with his staff to source rare ingredients. The lab is continuously codifying new recipes, like the carrots, for a hyper-seasonal menu that draws from 700 dishes already in the inventory. And he’s obsessed, positively obsessed, with mushrooms, including one variety that grows only in the trees of his hometown’s urban parks. In a city that barely registers on most Latin America bucket lists, Rodolfo Guzmán is the reason to show up for dinner.