Table For Four, Por Favor
I said that
Santiago has loosened its collar, but it may be more
accurate to say that the city has loosened its belt. That's because
Santiago's cultural revival has been led by a boom in innovative
eating places. Which is odd, if you consider that Chilean cuisine
is undistinguished, to put it kindly. During my only other visit to
Chile, two years ago, eating out was a question of biological
survival. Now it's one of the best ways to experience the city.
"When I used to come here as a tourist, all the restaurants served
the same food," restaurateur Susana Schnell told me as I lunched at
Zanzibar,
a Moroccan-inspired eatery she opened last year in the
popular suburban "gastronomic center," BordeRio. "Your only choice
was between rice and potatoes."
Zanzibar could hardly be farther from that. With its colorful bead
curtains and mosaic floors, it features what Peruvian-born,
U.S.-educated Schnell calls a spice-based cuisine, with every dish
showing off a different pungent flavor: breadsticks dipped in
yellow curry; zingy ginger-carrot soup; Chilean salmon in ginger,
curry, and soy sauce. "Chileans are traditionally timid with
spices, so this was kind of a wild idea," she explains. "But we've
found a niche."
Zanzibar is one of 10 restaurants that make up BordeRio, a sort of
gourmet
food court that opened in January 2000 to serve Santiago's
posh eastern suburbs of Providen-cia and Las Condes, and the
business travelers staying at nearby hotels. The mission-style
riverside complex offers Spanish, Peruvian, Italian, Argentine,
Japanese, French, and other international cuisines, daily happy
hours, and spectacular views of the Andean cordillera.