Today, Ancestral in La Paz is named the winner of the American Express One To Watch Award as part of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants 2022. 50 Best speaks to Bolivian chefs Mauricio López and Sebastián Giménez to discover their winning formula
What makes a successful restaurant concept? Although this question wasn’t on Mauricio López and Sebastián Giménez’s minds when they conceived their restaurant, Ancestral, the duo might just have stumbled upon the secret sauce. Since opening in 2019, Ancestral has weathered several storms – including of course a global pandemic, enforced closures and a period of political unrest in Bolivia – and today cements its reputation as one of Latin America’s must-visit gastronomic hotspots with its announcement as the American Express One To Watch.
To uncover the magic recipe behind Ancestral, one has to go back a couple of decades to when López and Giménez shared desks at the Montessori school in La Paz. Having become fast friends in their teenage years, the two ended up following separate paths in gastronomy. The former moved to Europe (passing through kitchens as famous as Noma, Azurmendi and Fäviken) before becoming head chef at La Paz’s iconic restaurant, Gustu, while the latter studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Peru and later worked at Astrid y Gastón in Lima.
But it was to the backdrop of San Sebastian’s picturesque bayfront – as they experienced the incredible gastronomy of the Basque town where Giménez was working with restaurant Arzak’s catering arm – that the seed of Ancestral was planted. “We spent 10 days in San Sebastian just talking about cooking and about life, and that was when we said: ‘What if we open a restaurant?’” recalls Giménez. “We didn’t have enough capital or enough knowledge – it was the first restaurant for both of us – but we decided to meet in La Paz in January 2019 to give it a chance.”
Ancestral combines Bolivian produce with Basque and Nordic influences
The Spanish town had an even deeper impact on the chefs’ sensibilities. “We wanted to bring San Sebastian’s style of simple, well-made, product-based food to Bolivia,” says López, “and that ended up being the base for Ancestral.” Giménez continues: “In the Basque Country, they love and value the product as such. Some of their typical dishes are just the ingredient, without even any garnish or sauces. Our food in Bolivia is often spicy, it can have 30 or 40 ingredients, it’s a cuisine of many flavours. So we wanted to show the value of Bolivia’s pantry by looking for ingredients of a certain quality and giving them added value in simple dishes, with three or four ingredients.”
The next element the chefs landed on was fire. Beyond being a technique they both loved, it also took them back to their Bolivian roots, as the tradition of making parrilladas (barbecues) with the community is a big part of the culture. “The smell of smoke, the sound of the grease falling on the embers – they bring back the memories of gathering at home with family and friends, they make you feel relaxed,” reflects López.
“In Bolivia, a lot of people in remote areas don’t have access to gas, much less a gas stove,” adds Giménez. “By culture or by necessity, fire is still used in many ways, from firewood to clay ovens. So choosing fire is a way of recognising through our work all those people and that culture.”
López and Giménez were childhood friends before deciding to open a restaurant together in 2019
The final element was to be found in López’s education and career at Gustu, La Paz’s fine dining institution that doubles as a research institute for little-known Bolivian ingredients through head chef Marsia Taha’s initiative, Sabores Silvestres. Having experienced first-hand the culinary potential of the country’s biodiversity, it was essential for López to highlight Bolivian ingredients at Ancestral, even if that went against the traditional concept of a parrilla [grill restaurant] in the country. Giménez jokes that in Bolivia a barbecue is usually 90% meat and 10% garnishes for the meat – but of course, that didn’t fit their restaurant’s product-based concept.
Instead, they set out to give the fire treatment to a much wider range of products, from vegetables to meat and river fish (a land-locked country, Bolivia doesn’t have access to the ocean and the chefs decided to forego importing produce in favour of their local-only sourcing practices). But they did so while keeping in mind the simple ingredient combinations they had tasted in the Basque Country and experimenting with the fire cooking techniques they’d seen in their travels across Bolivia. Thus, Ancestral was born.
A fresh concept for La Paz
Diners heading to Ancestral must find an easily overlooked sign on a sloping street in La Paz’s neighbourhood of Achumani. Going down a series of steps, the entrance gives the impression of heading into a basement – but due to the city’s mountainous character, the level below is also on street level, with an unexpectedly large, wood-floored dining room facing a garden and featuring a large open kitchen.
López and Giménez had no doubts about this: they wanted the kitchen to be the focal point of the restaurant, visible from every table. “We love the interaction people have with the kitchen, where you can see the fire, hear the cooking, and perhaps feel a bit of that adrenaline that cooks experience in each service,” says Giménez.
On any given night, you might find Giménez manning the grill, working in unison with his favourite element (“fire is incredible for the power it has, for the history it has, for its importance in the kitchen since ancient times and for how it transforms the product,” he says with a glint in his eyes), while López hovers by the pass, inspecting dishes and ensuring the smooth running of the service. Both often wander into the dining room to offer customers a little insight into their passion.
One of Ancestral's signature dishes: grilled artichoke hearts with Amazonian almond and romesco sauce
Ancestral presents both an à la carte and a tasting menu, with the chefs enjoying the best of both worlds. “We like people to come and order whatever they want, and then if they want something else, they can order more,” says López. “On the other hand, the tasting menu is a good option for people who are not going to come back to the restaurant, like tourists, because you can try a little bit of everything and also a few of the things we are testing at the moment. But most of all, we wanted to create a restaurant that people would want to come back to, where they don’t eat just once, but often.”
Among the steaming dishes coming out of the open kitchen may be grilled pork bites with tiger’s milk vinaigrette and sweet potato purée, grilled trout with lemon risotto, the signature steak (exclusively from Bolivian pastures) or agnolotti pasta with grilled mushrooms. But the two chefs are especially proud of the fact that, in a city as carnivorous as La Paz and with a concept as meat-focused as a parrilla, their most-ordered dish is entirely vegan.
Both describe the recipe as a perfect distillation of what Ancestral is. The main ingredient is artichokes, harvested fresh from the area around La Paz. The vegetable is first confited in oil with garlic and laurel, then – of course – it receives a touch of fire. Peppers and local vegetables are also charred on the grill before being made into romesco, a traditional Spanish sauce, using Amazonian nuts for a Bolivian twist. Finally, shavings of pickled papalisa [a local root vegetable] are scattered on the artichokes.
“Being here in Bolivia, we are very happy that we have been able to change a little bit people’s perspective and that they can come to a parrilla to eat dishes that are totally vegan and a little more product-based,” says Giménez.
The duo are also delighted that Ancestral is frequented by a high number of locals, including many families at weekends. “I hope we are showing that not only tourists can enjoy and value Bolivian ingredients. The idea is that we don’t even tell people that everything they are eating is local until the end of the meal: that way, they realise that Bolivia has incredible ingredients and that they don’t miss anything from beyond our borders,” says López.
Classic desserts are served, such as citrus pie with white chocolate and flower meringue
The dining experience is complemented by a series of classic desserts – the likes of mille feuilles with roasted berries – and a selection of Bolivian wines, where the chefs like to shine a light on small houses producing altitude wines, which are gaining growing recognition across Latin America for their fresh, acidic and distinctive character. The meal is enjoyed to the funky rhythms of an 80s hip-hop playlist curated by the chefs, providing a touch of youthful contrast to the elegant but informal experience.
For the pair, winning the American Express One To Watch Award was a surprise and they’re looking forward to reuniting with the gastronomic community from across the continent at the Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants 2022 events in Mérida, Yucatán, on 14 and 15 November. “The truth is that [the award] has given us a lot of joy,” says López.
“We have always believed in what we do and we have been faithful to our style. We want to do the cuisine we love, to create a business that works, to make sure that the people who work here are happy, that they have a fair salary, that those who come to eat leave satisfied and want to come back. We want to attract tourists and attract aid to Bolivia. It’s amazing that a restaurant that has an ideal and doesn’t exist just for commercial purposes has been recognised,” he says.
A few, well chosen ingredients carefully combined may indeed make the secret sauce, and Ancestral is well on its way to climbing into the elite group of the best restaurants in Latin America.
Find out more about Ancestral by watching the video:
The upcoming edition of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants, sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna, will be announced on Tuesday 15th November 2022. To be the first to hear about the latest news and announcements, follow us on Instagram, find us on Facebook, visit us on Twitter and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
