El Chato Madrid: Bogotá's top restaurant cooks for five nights
Álvaro Clavijo brings the restaurant voted No. 1 in Latin America to Semilla Food Studio from 21 to 25 October, with eight courses and Rioja pairings for €195.
El Chato, the Bogotá restaurant ranked No. 1 in Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants 2025, will cook in Spain for five nights: the El Chato Madrid residency runs from 21 to 25 October at Semilla Food Studio. Chef Álvaro Clavijo serves an eight-course menu for €195 a head, with DOCa Rioja wines included.
The visit is the second of 2026 for In Residence by Rioja, a programme that brings foreign kitchens to Madrid for a few days at a time and is now in its tenth edition. The first, in June, was the Tokyo eel specialist Kinsan. For a permanent table afterwards, our best restaurants in Madrid list is the next step.
Bookings are open on the programme's website. Semilla Food Studio is at Calle José Ortega y Gasset 67, according to the press release issued by the organisers on 24 September.
Five nights, one room and a menu priced well below a flight to Bogotá.
El Chato Madrid: eight courses built on Colombian produce
The menu leans on ingredients rarely seen in a Spanish dining room. It opens with mashua bread, an arracacha pipián and beef broth, then moves to pig's ear with guatila, lulo and casabe, and on to palm heart with fresh macadamia. Crab with rice and kimchi, snail with uchuva, moss and chicharrón, and beef with ants, corn and squash follow. A course of horseradish, apple and cucumber leads to dessert: mambe, lemongrass ice cream and cocada.
Each savoury course has its own Rioja, from Izadi Selección Blanco 2025 with the bread to Marqués de Riscal XR Rosé 2025 with the pig's ear and a Conde de los Andes Semidulce 2003 before dessert, according to the menu published by Demócrata. Rioja has backed the residencies for three years.
From Chapinero to No. 1 in Latin America
Clavijo, born in Bogotá, trained at the Hofmann school in Barcelona and Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and cooked in Paris, New York and Copenhagen before opening El Chato in 2017. The restaurant entered the Latin American list at No. 21 in 2018 and reached first place in 2025, the first Colombian restaurant to do so. The organisers place it at No. 54 in the World's 50 Best extended ranking.
For Madrid the arithmetic is simple: five nights, one room and a menu priced well below a flight to Bogotá. Readers who want to stay in the local register can pair the trip with what to eat in Madrid. A third international residency for 2026 has been promised but not yet named.
