If you are like us, and travelling through La Paz, you might find it hard to find up to date information about good restaurants and eating out in La Paz. I’m not sure if there is a lot of Spanish info, and not much Englisg information, or if there just isnt much of a reastauarant scene in La Paz, but we thought we would type this to help those looking for a nice restaurant in La Paz.
A lot of the ‘tourist’ places to eat out offer decent ‘Western’ style fare. There is an area within walking distance to most hostels called Four Corners (http://www.4cornerslapaz.com/), which has a number of restaurants owned by one very wealthy family. We ate in two in the Four Corners district; ‘The Steakhouse’ and ‘Sol & Luna’. Bare in mind that as these places all cater for tourists the prices are a bit higher than what you would pay at a ‘Bolivian’ restaurant (which are hard to find anyway). I’m talking about 300 Bolivianos for a decent meal and drinks for 2 people, thats roughly $50 AUD.
The Steakhouse was actually really good with amazing spicy chicken wings, and then perfectly cooked steak to follow. The manager there is a nice English guy who seems happy to help with anything and always happy to chat with other native English speakers. The next night Sol & Luna was a big disappointment. It took over half an hour to get our first drink, the staff were slow, and many items on the menu weren’t available. When the food eventually did come it was good, but the lack of service spoiled the meal for me.
We did however manage to find a couple of non tourist restaurants in La Paz. The first is Restaurant Utama, which is located ont he top floor of the Plaze Hotel (http://www.plazabolivia.com.bo/), on Avienda Mariscal Santa Cruz (the main street, right next to Plaza del Estudiante). As far as we could find out, this is one of the closest forms of fine dining available in La Paz. The food here was a modern twist on traditional Bolivian food and we had both trout and llama (as opposed to Alpaca which we tried in Peru). Both were good, however the llama was a bit tough, overcooked i would say. The winner of the night for me was the entree of beef carpaccio, which had capers and a nice drizzling of balsamic dressing. Meals here were cheap for an upmarket place, with mains being around the 40bs mark (6 – 7AUD). The view alone is probably worth the meal price however.
The best restaurant in La Paz, for both of us however, was one we just happened to stumble across called La Casona (http://www.lacasonahotelboutique.com/). La casona is located right next to the main San Fransico Church, and it is set in part of an old 17th Century mansion, giving it a real sense of history as you walk through what used to be the old carriage doors. The food here is amazing and would definitely hold its own against (and beat) a lot of nice eateries in Sydney and all over Australia. We had a 3 trout entree which was served with Chevre and then a vegetarian lasagne and roast lamb leg, and yes, they actually bought out a whole roasted lamb leg. It was actually probably the best meal we have had on our entire trip; entire bill 200Bs (<35 AUD). If you are in La Paz, definitely try and check out La Casona restaurant.
On the beer front, i did manage to try a couple brews at the Worlds highest microbrewery. It is located in a hostel called The Adventure Brew Hostel (http://www.theadventurebrewhostel.com/) and brews a brand of beer called Saya, with a few different varieties. Personally i thought they were all a little too heavy on the (German) Munich hops, but if i had to pick a favourite i would go with a slightly stronger one called Oktober.
-Shaun
