Gustu — Restaurant in La Paz

My partner and I, who have enjoyed tasting menus across the globe, decided to dine at Gustu in La Paz, Bolivia tonight. Having read about the restaurant, I was eager to experience its culinary offerings firsthand. However, my expectations were met with disappointment.

The menu at Gustu showcased an array of dishes that, while creative, were overly eccentric and lacked cohesion. The flavors were predominantly sour and often clashed rather than complementing each other. It seemed that the emphasis on avant-garde presentation overshadowed the fundamental principles of balance and harmony in taste.

Additionally, the pacing of the meal was surprisingly quick. Dishes arrived at a rapid speed, with the severs bringing the next dish as soon as you finished your current plate, preventing any real enjoyment or contemplation of the individual courses.

There was a lack of atmosphere or ambience. The dining room felt cold and unwelcoming, devoid of the warmth and friendliness one expects from a high-end restaurant. Not once did the servers ask how was the food, did we need anything else, nor any other check-ins during or post the meal. However, it was pleasant to watch the chefs cook through the glass panelled open kitchen.

While Gustu strives to push the boundaries of culinary creativity, it unfortunately misses the mark on delivering a satisfying dining experience. The dishes need refinement to achieve a harmonious blend of flavours, the pacing of service needs improvement, and the overall atmosphere could benefit greatly from a more inviting and hospitable touch, supported by more energetic servers and a front of house.

For two tasting menus and a bottle of wine between us, the total cost was just over £150. Not worth the money in my opinion. A very forgettable menu and experience. Unfortunately, I would...

We got the three course meal. Having read it's part of the top 50 best restaurants in South America or maybe even the world, I was expecting unknown and delicate flavors to titillate my palate. This was not the case. To me, Gustu's style is very heavy, salty, with little space for interesting spices or flavors. I guess I understand that this is probably due to the influence of Dutch cuisine which might center around these elements (?). My other explanation is that if you don't get the 8 course menu, they are just going to treat you like a second hand customer. In any case, I was disappointed but felt full for the next two days.

The worst was the main course, some soggy dehyrdated mushrooms, lettuce and potatoes soaked in over-runny eggs. The yolks overpowering and covering everything, the mushrooms reminded me of sticking my hand into a pond with lots of algae. The potatoes were a nice island of non-soggyness. The best was was the dessert, a Chirimoya ice cream with a hibiscus merengue and flowers. The flowers were petals stuck on the ice cream, more for fancy points than flavor points. The merengue was good. Chirimoya ice cream is always good so it wasn't really impressive. The very few choices of non-alcoholic beverages was also disappointing.

I was disappointed, but admit it's just maybe I don't understand this heavier type of cuisine. All in all, considering the cost (for a non Bolivian person), I guess...

For people who can't afford fine dining and find themselves in La Paz, this is a fun place to go, because the service is so good, it does lend a very fine-dining experience -- La Paz folks have such pride for this place! But.... the quality of the food is just not there. Most of the dishes seemed flawed in their design, so I don't think it was an issue of execution or catching them on a bad night.

For an appetizer, we got a dish made up of various textures of corn. It was awful - it seemed that the enthusiasm for the ingredients lead to putting way too many different foods on a single plate - what made it particularly hard to eat were the candied cubes of purple corn, which were surprising (not in a good way) and hard to avoid in the dish.

For mains, we ordered a mushroom dish which was very unappetizingly plated, but relatively good - interesting mushrooms that were cooked well. We also ordered a beef dish, after being advised the pork was a bit too fatty. The beef dish was quite beautiful (see photos below), but was so fatty it was quite gross - I can't imagine what the pork must have been like!

Desert was also regrettable - as bad as the photo makes it look.

Again, I want to stress that the service was EXCELLENT. Our server did a great job with guiding us through a very challenging menu, and was nice throughout. We also loved that they ordered a taxi on our behalf at the end of...