Restaurante Travesía

Restaurante Travesía: Chilote Heritage Cooking in Castro

Travesía is a Chilote restaurant in Castro, in Chile’s Chiloé Archipelago. The project connects the islands’ traditional food with cultural research: chef Lorna Muñoz Arias and professor, writer, historian, and poet Renato Cárdenas Álvarez are credited as contributors and coauthors of the book “Chiloé contado desde la Cocina” (“Chiloé Told Through the Kitchen”).

The website presents the restaurant as a place for heritage cooking and cultural storytelling, where recipes are accompanied by writing about the origins and context of island dishes and ingredients.

Lorna Muñoz, Chilote Chef

Lorna Muñoz Arias is described as a Chilote chef based in Castro. She represented Chile at Expo Milano 2015, where she was responsible for bringing Chiloé’s flavors to the Chile Pavilion. With Renato Cárdenas, she coauthored “Chiloé contado desde la Cocina,” which competed in the 2016 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Beijing.

Renato Cárdenas, Researcher and Chronicler of Island Culture

Renato Cárdenas Álvarez (Calen, Dalcahue, 1949) is a Chilean professor, writer, historian, and poet associated with the Aumen cultural movement. The source identifies him as one of its founders, alongside Carlos Trujillo, in 1975. He studied education at the University of Chile and at the School of Fine Arts in Valparaíso, then received a scholarship to study communications.

Mapuche and Spanish Roots of Chilote Cooking

The restaurant’s material traces island food to the meeting of two foundational cultures: Mapuche and Spanish. It attributes the potato-based table, curanto, and foods from the shore and sea to the Mapuche, along with cooking methods using embers, coals, smoke, water, and ambient heat to dry food. From Spanish settlers from Galicia, the Castilian plateau, and the Basque Country, it traces the introduction of seasonings and regional cooking styles.

Chilote cooking is also described through the fogón, or hearth, as the center of island life: a place to gather, welcome others, and shelter fishermen during storms.

Dishes and Recipes from the Cookbook

The published cookbook includes representative preparations from Chiloé:

• Sea bass carpaccio with lamilla seaweed sauce, made with slices of fresh sea bass and a sauce of lamilla seaweed, lemon, Chilote garlic, and ground toasted almonds.
• Smoked cholga mussel sauce with capers.
• Trout cancato with luchicán, made with a whole trout opened lengthwise and a luchicán of shallots, carrot, Chilote garlic, curanteado luche seaweed, and colorful Chilote potatoes.
• Sierra mackerel in pangue leaves with sea-bass charquicán, starting with dried sea bass soaked in water and served with shallots, garlic, carrots, and native potatoes in different colors.

Traditional Products and Drinks

The website has sections on Chiloé ingredients and drinks. They include licor de oro, for which it provides quantities of pure alcohol, cow’s milk, sugar, and lemons, and apple chicha, or brisvis, described as the Chilotes’ quintessential drink—a stimulus for work and social gatherings, and a fixture of long winter nights.

The site also discusses the potato’s role in island cooking as a dietary staple and a defining part of the population’s social and cultural relationships, as well as curanto, cooked in a pit with thick firewood and stones heated over the fire.

Publications and Cultural Outreach

In addition to “Chiloé contado desde la Cocina,” the project has sections devoted to the archipelago’s four meals, the postmodern table, and life through the kitchen, combining recipes with writing about the region’s food culture.

Location and Contact

Eusebio Lillo No. 188, Castro, Chiloé, Chile · Phone: (65) 263 0137 · Email: lornachiloe@hotmail.com