Gustu Resturant | Becoming is Superior to Being

Gustu Restaurant Tasting Experience — La Paz, Bolivia Leave a comment

Gustu Restaurant Tasting Experience — La Paz, Bolivia — Images by kenne (Click On Any Image To See In A Slideshow Format)

In August of 2019, we spent some time in La Paz, Bolivia, before flying over the Andes to the Madidi National Forest in the Amazon. While in La Paz, we went to the Gustu Resterarent. Opened by Dane and co-founder of four-time World’s Best Restaurant, Claus Meyer, in 2013 with grand ambitions to boost investment and training in Bolivia while also propelling the country on to the world’s gastronomic map. We choose one of the tasting menus. The food was artistically presented, each providing a memorable tasting experience.

— kenne

A Tasting-Menu Experience At The Gustu Resturant, La Paz, Bolivia Leave a comment

Matt, Ty and Tom with head chef Marsia Taha and the Gustu Resturant staff (August 17, 2019)

We arrived early Saturday morning in La Paz, Bolivia to begin our Madidi National Park adventure in the upper Amazon river basin in Bolivia. After a couple of hours sleep at the Rosario Hotel in downtown La Paz, we spent most of the day taking in the downtown sites before a 4:00 pm meeting with Rob Wallace, Director of the Greater Madidi-Tambopata Landscape Conservation Program for the WCS (World Conservation Society) Bolivia. Tom Markey met him at the Typica Cafe and spent a couple of hours talking to Rob about community-based natural resource management projects, indigenous organizations and protected area conservation planning and monitoring in preparation for our river adventure in the Madidi National Park.

Rob Wallace and Tom Markey at Typica Cafe.

Next, we took a taxi to Gustu Resturant for dinner. In the planning stage of our trip, we read an article in The New Yorker, “The Tasting-Menu Initiative.” Gustu was opened in 2013 by the Danish food entrepreneur Claus Meyer, whose goal was to offer a fine-dining experience with an avant-garde tasting menu, composed entirely from indigenous ingredients. (A future posting will share our August 17th tasting-menu experience.)

Before the evening was over, the head chef, Marsia Taha took us on a tour of the Gustu kitchen. Marsia, who is Bolivian, became the head chef in 2017.

— kenne