Mestizo has always had the reputation of being a place where you pay for your surroundings. Set at one end of the lovely Parque Bicentenario, it certainly does offer nice surroundings, but since we can enjoy the same view for free – and with Lola – just by going to the park, Mestizo somehow never made the cut.
Eventually, however, our curiosity got the best of us, and we decided to give dinner a chance. Showing up on a Thursday night with no reservation meant we had wait, but with a well-stocked bar that’s never a problem…right? Well, it’s sort of a problem when no one pays attention to you for 10 minutes, leaving you both menu-less and drink-less.
We eventually got our drinks around the same time our table became ready. The starter we’d ordered, spicy, garlicky prawns, arrived only shortly thereafter, and the flavors made us think that we’d been right to put up with the slow start.
Our main courses, however, reminded us of what we’d heard about Mestizo. Perhaps it was only fitting then that neither of them proved to be easy to photograph in the very low light – no blog space for so-so dishes! Neither was bad at all, but Rodolfo’s caldillo de congrio, a typical Chilean fish soup, and my raviolis filled with the normally very flavorful asado de tira cut of beef failed to impress.
Service once again dragged, although that may have been due to our location in the back of the restaurant behind a natural stone pillar. It was cozy and romantic but seemed to put us into the “out of sight, out of mind” category for our waiters. Eventually, however, dessert arrived. The combination of rich chocolate lava cake with tart passionfruit ice cream really worked, as did the churros which Rodolfo proceeded to talk about for days.
Overall, Mestizo didn’t blow us away. The service was a let-down, and the food wasn’t good enough to make up for it. If we end up there in the future, it will be to enjoy a cocktail and a dessert out on the patio on a summer night after a day at the park. I’ll be the one scoping out which table is closest to the edge so that Lola can explore nearby as we munch on more of those churros.
More in this series:
Saturday in Santiago
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