Story & Photography by Manos Angelakis

During our recent trip to Ecuador we had some very nice and tasty ethnic food, but only few memorable international quality meals. The nice thing about Ecuador is that it has a little bit of everything regarding cuisine, which is mostly an assembly of fare from both local dishes and dishes from the neighboring Latin countries and, of course, considering the colonial Spanish history, plenty of classic Spanish dishes. The basic protein is seafood and fish from the Pacific.

Restaurante El Caracol Azul (The Blue Snail Restaurant) Av. Nueve de Octubre 1918 at Los Ríos, phone 04/228-0461, Guayaquil. The kitchen specializes in Peruvian-style seafood, and it is very popular with the business crowd. As many of the Ecuadorian restaurants we ate in, it is located in a nondescript building in a downtown neighborhood. The interior is unexpectedly stylish, enlivened by a skylight and a collection of lovely paintings by local artists, collected through the past 35 years by Muriel Beaven, the restaurant’s owner. The dishes that stood out were the fried or grilled corvina (Pacific White Croaker) and the Fettuccini con Camarón a la Crema (Pasta with Shrimp  in a White Sauce). The Avocado a la Reina, was also good though not as flavorful as the Chilean version. There is an extensive wine list with mostly mid-priced Chilean and Argentinean wines – of note are the numerous organic/biodynamic wines in the cellar. 

El Crater Restaurant, with a spectacular panoramic view of the Pululahua crater, on the road to Moraspungo. Nice ethnic food without pretensions, in a pleasant environment. An art gallery shows sculptural works of Ecuadorian artists. A comfortable small hotel by the restaurant is built with local materials taken from the crater and woods from the mountain nearby. The pasta Alfredo with mushrooms was the only international dish on the menu… you are better off staying with the local specialties. Freshly squeezed fruit juices are a tasty and healthy alternative for lunch, the blackberry juice was wonderful.

Dos Chorreras (Km 14 Vía al Cajas, 593-7-2853154 www.doschorreras.com), is a rustic Inn with a nice restaurant located on the edge of “El Cajas” Nacional Park. The specialty of this restaurant is trout, farmed at an adjacent fish farm, and cooked in many ways. The menu is short with two soups, 6 trout main courses, a chicken, a pork and a beef main, some desserts and hot and cold drinks.  I had the grilled trout specialty of the house and another member of the group had the trout with the hot garlic sauce. Both dishes were tasty and the fish were properly cooked, moist with a smoky, crunchy skin. We were served an interesting warm drink called Canelazos that is made with fruit juice, cinnamon, sugar cane and naranjilla and is flavored and colored a brilliant scarlet with the flower of a local herb.

El Rincón de Cantuña Restaurant at the Hotel Patio Andaluz, (Av. García Moreno N6-52 entre Olmedo y Mejía, www.hotelpatioandaluz.com), in Quito. The restaurant is located in the central patio of a three-story Spanish colonial building that houses the hotel. The menu is extensive and includes traditional Spanish tapas, appetizers, soups, main courses (mostly Spanish dishes), vegetarian specialties, sandwiches and hamburgers, and desserts. The fruit drinks are delicate and very refreshing. A Peruvian duo of guitar and pan-pipes entertained with such classic tunes as “El Choclo” (known in the English-speaking world as “Kiss of Fire”), an Argentinean tango by Ángel Villoldo, and “El Cóndor Pasa”, a song composed by Alomía Robles, possibly the best-known Peruvian song due to a cover version by Simon & Garfunkel on their Bridge Over Troubled Water album. Our lunch was excellent with the tapas taking top honors. The main courses of “Parrillada de Mariscos” i.e. grilled seafood, Trucha en Salsa de Limón (grilled trout filet, with grilled vegetables and a lemon sauce), Arroz Marinero (a base of saffron rice topped with stewed seafood), were very good and very fresh. The tropical fruit based ices and desserts were also incredibly good.

Private dinning at the Hilton Colón’s Presidential Suite (Av. Amazonas y Av. Patria, 593-02-2560666, www.quito.hilton.com) in Quito is indeed a luxury experience not easily forgotten. The suite’s dinning room offers a grand view of the city from the top floor of the hotel’s tower that is especially attractive at night. Chef Pablo Zaubrano created an interesting multicultural menu that started with an Asian appetizer (sushi roll) and ended with a meddley of desserts, passing through the Mediterranean for the first course, and Peru for the main. The end was a cup of coca tea, an infusion that is prized by the indigenous peoples of Western South America as medicine for altitude sickness. The white-glove service was impeccable, something you no longer see even at top rated restaurants in other larger cities.   

Jan Niedrau, the general manager of Zazu (Mariano Aguilera 331 and Martin Carrion, 593-02-2543559, www.zazuquito.com) in Quito, invited our group for a tasting menu dinner. In addition to Estragón (see Estragón in the Restaurants section), Zazu is, we believe, one of the two top international level restaurants in Ecuador that has put Quito on the world map for superb food. The cuisine is described by Executive Chef Alexander Lau, as Nuevo Latino, but there are Asian overtones in many of the dishes. Whereas Estragón is all about reviving ancient Ecuadorian recipes using indigenous ingredients, Zazu is about creating new and exciting ways of presenting tradional dishes; for example his ceviche - a well-known South American marinated raw seafood and/or fish appetiser. Here Chef Lau served us several of his different versions... all tasty and delicious, plus with great eye appeal. One version was sole with herbs, passion fruit and Mandarin Orange Vodka, another mixed fish seasoned with grated cheese, a third with simple oil and garlic, and a fourth with a spicy sauce. A charming starter was 3 tiny cones stuffed with Tuna Tartar with a kick, Shrimp with dressing, and finally Stone Crab with Mayonaise. A meal at Zazu is easily a three hour deal, so bring your patience and most of all your appetite. 

And now for the brickbats: We had a disappointing dinner during our trip at a restaurant that was supposed to be the third best in Quito, the Theatrum Restaurant and Wine Bar, located at the Teatro National Sucre (Sucre Opera House). The physical setting was very opulent but the menu was pedestrian (local interpretation of Italian dishes) and the food was poorly prepared with many of the dishes practically uncooked (I like an al dente risotto but what we got was ridiculously raw), I don’t think the chef was in the kitchen; I don’t believe if he was there, he would have allowed many of these dishes to be delivered to a food critic’s table.  

© September 2010 LuxuryWeb Magazine. All rights reserved.