Chef Leonor Espinosa Celebrates Colombian Food & Heritage at Leo

When I take a trip somewhere, one really nice (read: expensive) meal is always something I indulge in and when I was in Colombia last month that experience took place at the extraordinary Leo in Bogota. After reading about the restaurant’s excellence repeatedly on the likes of Eater, The Infatuation and Lonely Planet, I was intrigued, and when I read that the restaurant was female owned by Chef Leonor Espinosa, I was sold. Chef Espinosa has an impressive resume with multiple restaurants and was named Latin America’s Best Female Chef 2017 by San Pelligrino so you know she is bringing it. I had no idea just how hard she was bringing it until I dined there for lunch on a sunny Thursday in February.

Eleven courses with libation pairings (and a tip on top of the added gratuity on the bill) cost me $123.85 USD. Now, as I said this was my expensive meal, and for the truly exceptional dining experience, I’d say I got one hell of a bargain. I can only imagine what you would pay for something like this in the United States from a restaurant and chef of this caliber. Eleven courses is a lot for lunch, (and they serve the same menu at dinner) – I would have preferred to eat here for dinner, but I wanted good light for photos and still the photos do not even begin to do the food justice. Colombia is a country still somewhat struggling to find its identity on a plate; it doesn’t boast a dish as signature as tacos to Mexico or ceviche to Peru, and Leonor is one of the driving culinary forces changing that by highlighting traditional Colombian ingredients in a fantastically creative way. I dined next to a gentleman who was from Colombia but hadn’t been there in ten years. As we were both alone, we struck up a conversation and getting to observe him connect with the food that brought him back to his childhood through flavors and ingredients was a testament to the food Chef Espinosa is serving.

So here it is, eleven courses of Colombian awesomeness! Each dish highlights a different ecosystem of the country, and is featured on the menu (something I found extremely interesting). The first three dishes after the amuse bouche were served in pairs and so that’s how I photographed them as to portray a real sense of the meal being served. I put this meal in one of my top three dining experiences of all time.