Who is Álvaro Clavijo?
Revolutionizes and revalorizes Colombian cuisine with an international vision.
Álvaro Clavijo is the brilliant mind behind El Chato restaurant in Bogota, Colombia. His cuisine doesn’t seek to be pretentious but does manage to capture attention for its distinguished style.
He started as a dishwasher in France and, at the chef’s suggestion, he ventured into the world of cooking. He trained at the Hofmann hotel school in Barcelona. He worked in the kitchens of several Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris for seven years; he spent three years in New York; then went to Noma restaurant in Denmark and finally back to his roots in Bogota.
El Chato opened its doors in 2017 as a contemporary bistro in the Chapinero Alto neighborhood. “Chato” is a Bogota expression to refer to a person and, in this fashion, Álvaro wanted to pay homage to his city and to local products. Since he opened, he has been working with small producers who send him their best ingredients. The relationship is so close, it’s gotten to the point where he has developed products with some of them or has motivated them to plant others that they weren’t growing. The menu changes according to the supply of local products and ingredients. There are dishes that have been on the menu since the restaurant’s beginning and which customers continue to ask for, thus elevating them to become classics.
"I'm always asked what kind of food we do at El Chato and it's a very difficult question to answer. The only reply I can give is that we take inspiration from local suppliers and we build a dish that people can order a la carte. The best way to name it for me was as a contemporary bistro. I didn't want a white tablecloth restaurant. I wanted good, tasty food and a place that people would want to come back to several times a week instead of once every six months. That seems to have played a big part in our success."
In June 2023, it was ranked No. 33 by The World's 50 Best, as one of the 50 best restaurants in the world, and in 2024 his restaurant was named No. 2 in Latin America and No. 25 in the world.
