Crecencia “Cristina” Zurita has been making chola sandwiches for 57 years.
This list of vetted vendors lets you stuff your face without fear.
There’s a booming food scene in La Paz with new, upscale restaurants opening all the time. But the soul of Bolivian food remains on the street. Spend any time in the city, and you’ll see locals queuing at market stalls, food carts and stands at all hours. With their long lines and mouthwatering aromas — not to mention the dirt-cheap prices — there’s little room to wonder why Bolivia is the only country in Latin America where McDonald’s flopped, packed up and left.
Street food is a constant temptation for foreign tourists, but many cut a wide berth for fear of getting sick. There is a way to get a taste of authentic Bolivia without your trip turning into a series of trips to the bathroom. The organization Suma Phayata Street Food features five — and soon to be more — street food vendors who offer up a clean and safe crawl of La Paz food stalls.
It was actually Claus Meyer, the world-famous Danish chef and entrepreneur, who came up with the idea for Suma Phayata (“well cooked” in Aymara). He started making frequent trips to La Paz when he opened his acclaimed restaurant, Gustu, there a few years ago. However, in his quest to “try everything in sight … he was always getting sick,” explains Sumaya Prado, head of public relations for Gustu.
Crecencia “Cristina” Zurita warns visitors to look for the plaque.
Meyer had already established a nonprofit organization called Melting Pot that runs a program training underprivileged Bolivians to work in the restaurant industry. At his suggestion, it launched the Suma Phayata initiative in 2012 in an attempt to create safe eating options for tourists and to ensure that even in the face of increasingly sophisticated food offerings, Bolivia’s traditional street food not only survives but thrives.
Sofia Condori, a member of Suma Phayata, sells tucumanas, or fried empanadas.
The project has identified 50 more potential vendors to train but is struggling to raise the needed funds.
Tourists can get a map of where to find the vendors, which are spread out across the city, at Gustu and many area hotels and restaurants.
A note to those who think offal is awful: The heart is a muscle, so it has the consistency (and taste) of a firm steak.
Start the day with Condori’s tucumanas in the Zona Sur neighborhood. For about $1.50 a piece, you can choose from fillings of mixed shellfish, shrimp and cheese, chicken, beef or ham and cheese, and a variety of sauces including hot and avocado. At many stands, tucumanas are premade — it’s anybody’s guess how — and warmed under heat lamps. Condori makes them to order. The result: a perfect balance of crust and chewiness, with a piping hot, juicy filling.
Not far off is the well-known spot in La Florida neighborhood where more than a dozen stalls sell chola sandwiches — but only Zurita has the seal of approval. When the sun sets in La Paz and the temperature drops, head over to Calle Tumusla, where Miriam Iturralde makes ranga, a spicy beef tripe soup she’s been hawking for some 40 years. For a late-night snack on the way home from the bar, hit up Julia Rita Cori in Las Velas. Cori sells succulent anticuchos, or beef heart skewers, until sunrise. (A note to those who think offal is awful: The heart is a muscle, so it has the consistency, and taste, of a firm steak.) And Elvira Goitia is constantly selling choripan (sausage sandwiches) — handmade with lamb, beef and llama meat and a top-secret spice blend — at Mercado Lanza in the heart of downtown La Paz.
Elvira Goitia sells choripan at Mercado Lanza in downtown La Paz.