What to Eat in Chile
A culinary guide to Chile: from hearty corn bakes and Pacific seafood to the avocado-obsessed street food and the evening once ritual.

[ ] Try pastel de choclo
    A baked corn pie served bubbling in a shallow clay bowl, featuring a sweet, basil-scented pureed corn crust over savory seasoned minced beef, chicken, hard-boiled egg, black olives, and raisins.
[ ] Try baked empanada de pino
    Chile's signature baked savory pastry, packed with spiced minced or chopped beef, slowly braised onions, cumin, a whole pit-in olive, raisins, and a slice of hard-boiled egg.
[ ] Try cazuela
    A comforting broth soup featuring large whole cuts: a generous portion of beef or chicken alongside an intact half-cob of corn, potato, sweet pumpkin slice, and rice.
[ ] Try completo italiano
    Chile's iconic loaded hot dog: a warm elongated bun housing a frankfurter, buried beneath diced fresh tomatoes, an enormous mound of mashed avocado, and a heavy ribbon of mayonnaise.
[ ] Try curanto
    An ancient ancestral feast from the Chiloé archipelago layering giant mussels, clams, smoked pork ribs, sausages, and potato cakes, steamed in an earth pit lined with hot stones and pangue leaves.
[ ] Try caldillo de congrio
    A rich conger eel chowder immortalized by poet Pablo Neruda, stewed with firm chunks of white fish, onions, garlic, carrots, tomatoes, white wine, and fresh herbs.
[ ] Try choripán con pebre
    A grilled pork chorizo sausage split lengthwise inside a crusty marraqueta bread roll, loaded with fresh pebre salsa made of tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and green chilies.
[ ] Try machas a la parmesana
    Pink razor clams baked on the half-shell with a dash of crisp dry white wine, a dab of butter, and a bubbling crown of melted parmesan cheese.
[ ] Try pastel de jaiba
    A decadent baked crab casserole made from fresh Pacific blue crab meat blended with milk-soaked bread, cream, sautéed onions, garlic, and melted cheese in a clay crock.
[ ] Try charquicán
    A wholesome indigenous-colonial mash of tender pumpkin, potatoes, sweet corn kernels, and green beans cooked down with minced beef or jerky and crowned with a fried egg.
[ ] Try chacarero sandwich
    A classic farm-style sandwich built on a round soft bun with thin griddled beef slices, fresh tomatoes, cold boiled green beans, and finely sliced pickled green chilies.
[ ] Try marraqueta con palta
    The essential centerpiece of Chilean breakfast and tea-time: a crisp, airy four-part bread roll split open and loaded with fresh Hass avocado mashed with coarse sea salt.
[ ] Try torta de milhojas con manjar
    Chile's beloved thousand-layer cake, built from paper-thin crispy pastry wafers slathered with rich, slow-cooked caramelized milk (manjar) and crushed walnuts.
[ ] Try Chilean alfajores
    Delicate cornstarch shortbread sandwich cookies generously filled with thick dulce de leche (manjar) and rolled in shredded coconut or dipped in dark chocolate.
[ ] Try Southern Chilean kuchen
    A German-immigrant heritage fruit pie ubiquitous in the Lake District, featuring a crumbly pastry crust laden with local murta berries, raspberries, or apples under sweet custard.
[ ] Try leche asada
    A rustic baked milk custard cooked directly in high oven heat until a toasted, scorched caramel crust develops over a tender, creamy core.
[ ] Try mote con huesillo
    A quintessential warm-weather street refreshment: a chilled caramelized peach nectar infused with cinnamon, layered with chewy cooked husked wheat and rehydrated dried peaches.
[ ] Try ulpo
    An ancestral Mapuche grain beverage made by whisking toasted wheat flour (harina tostada) into warm water or milk, sweetened with a generous spoonful of local honey.
[ ] Drink tea during la once
    Strong black tea served piping hot in mugs, often softened with milk and sweetened with sugar, anchoring the daily Chilean evening family meal.
[ ] Try Chilean pisco sour
    The national cocktail made with Chilean grape brandy (pisco), tart juice from northern Pica limes or lemons, and powdered sugar, shaken hard over ice.
[ ] Try a terremoto cocktail
    The legendary 'Earthquake' cocktail created in Santiago dives: sweet rustic white wine (pipeño) topped with a scoop of pineapple ice cream and bitter fernet or grenadine.
[ ] Try Chilean Carménère wine
    Chile's signature red wine varietal, thought extinct in Europe after phylloxera until rediscovered in Chilean vineyards, delivering smooth tannins and flavors of blackberry, cocoa, and green bell pepper.

Checklist from Unload: https://unloads.me/c/food-chile