In Bolivia's capital, women are leading a culinary revolution

In La Paz’s central market, you have to watch your step. Sacks of potatoes — chalk white, butter yellow, midnight blue — spill at my ankles. Sprawled at my feet are husks of white and purple corn, and squashes so big you’d need both arms to lift them. All around, hundreds of vendors — almost all of them women — watch my every move.

One seller catches my eye from behind her green beans: she wears a turquoise, box-pleated skirt called a pollera, which balloons from the hips, a brown alpaca wool shawl and a single braid to her waist. Her nails are coated in dirt; her fingers wrinkled and peeling at the edges. “Qué va a llevar?” (‘What are you buying?’) she says, her eyes sharp and lips pressed tight.

The vendor, like most selling here, is Aymara — the second-largest Indigenous group in Bolivia after Quechua, but the largest in La Paz and the neighbouring city of El Alto. Her clothes indicate she’s a cholita, once a derogatory term used by Spanish colonialists to refer to Bolivia’s Indigenous women, now reclaimed — along with their traditional dress — as a symbol of Indigenous pride. In Bolivia, about 48% of people identify as Indigenous — the highest anywhere in South America.

La Paz’s Indigenous identity is a defining characteristic of this city high in the Andes — and female Indigenous identity is deeply connected to what grows here. Aymara women known as caseras run the city’s food markets from dawn until dusk, selling thousands of varieties of native potatoes, chillies, corn, quinoa and rare grains and fruits like cañahua and achachairú. But despite its rich pantry, Bolivia’s culinary scene lagged behind its South American neighbours for decades. Now, however, a new wave of chefs in La Paz — many of them women — is striving to change that.

“Caseeeraaaa!” I hear over my shoulder from my guide Valentina Arteaga. The stall holder’s stern look melts instantly, revealing two front teeth filed into silver hearts. “Valentina,” she responds. “Cuanto tiempo!” (‘Long time no see!’). “Everyone has their favourite caseras,” explains Valentina, as she approaches the stand. She’s the chef-owner of Phayawi, a La Paz restaurant whose name means ‘kitchen’ in Aymara. It’s one of the few high-end restaurants in the capital focused entirely on traditional Bolivian recipes.

We’ve come to Rodriguez Market to buy ingredients for a special menu Valentina has conceived to mark Bolivia’s bicentennial of independence from Spanish rule. After seven years of culinary training in Lima, Spain and the US, Valentina returned to La Paz in 2020 to open Phayawi at just 28 years old. Two years later, despite the challenges of Covid, a growing economic crisis and political tensions in Bolivia, her restaurant made it onto Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants list. “Caseras inspire me,” says Valentina. “They work 16 hours a day, carry dozens of kilos on their backs and never complain. If they can do that, I can make my restaurant work.”

It’s approaching 10am, which means it’s sajra hora — La Paz’s mid-morning food break. We stop at Doña Rogelia’s market stand for hot wallake, a pre-colonial Lake Titicaca soup made with native karachi fish and k’oa, an Andean mint. We grab the last two plastic chairs and get stuck in: the tiny fish is fiddly to eat, but the flesh is soft and sweet as butter. Valentina has everything she needs, so we head to Phayawi. It sits on a quiet residential street in the Achumani neighbourhood in Zona Sur — the city’s wealthiest quarter and home to many of La Paz’s top restaurants.

“I’m not trying to invent a new cuisine; Bolivia already has one,” says Valentina, before disappearing into the restaurant’s large open kitchen, where an almost all-female team preps for lunch service. Inside, there’s a spacious, two-level dining room with a colourful carnival mural painted by local female artists and Bolivian folk music playing. Almost everyone eating here is Bolivian. “Phayawi is for Bolivianos first,” says Valentina. “If people taste home in our dishes and are proud of Bolivian food, then we’re doing it right.”

I start with sopa de maní: a milky broth that tastes lightly nutty, with a drizzle of turmeric oil staining the surface gold and crisp potato strips adding crunch. Next is ispi frito — thin, crispy-fried Lake Titicaca fish that I’m told to eat whole with a squeeze of lime. Then comes the queso humacha: a creamy cheese and white corn soup that’s deliciously warm with ají amarillo — a sweet Andean chilli — yet fresh thanks to huacatay, an Andean herb that’s a cross between mint and basil. It’s not the type of food you’ll see on international menus back home; each dish is a revelation.

At 5.30am the next morning, I take a taxi east to Pampahasi — a largely Aymara neighbourhood close to El Alto, the highest city in the world, which sits directly above the Bolivian capital. The engine strains as we climb towards 4,000 metres. From up here, La Paz is breathtaking: it spreads from the flat valley floor up steep red-brown slopes in every direction, forming a vast bowl of corrugated roofs and exposed brick. Cable-cars glide overhead, linking the basin floor to colourful neighbourhoods stacked on the hillsides. Snowcapped Huayna Potosi and Illimani, La Paz’s tallest peak, watch over it all.

I reach a four-storey house with a red iron door, where Emiliana Condoriri — or Doña Emi, as she’s known — is waiting, wearing a baby-pink pollera and blue chef’s hat. She smiles and ushers me into a room that smells like an English chippy. Here, three Aymara women sit around a hip-high bucket of mash, shaping rellenos — deep-fried potato balls filled with stewed beef.

Doña Emi’s signature snack was born 37 years ago. After struggling to compete with the thousands of stands in La Paz selling salteña (a baked empanada filled with stewed meat and vegetables), she adapted the recipe. Today, Doña Emi’s rellenos are an iconic La Paz street food, and have even featured in Netflix’s Street Food: Latin America series.

“At first, no one wanted to buy them,” she says, handing me a still-hot relleno. The golden-coloured casing is crisp on the outside and fluffy within, and the meat is tender and a little sweet from carrot. “It took me five months to sell 50. Now, I’ve sold up to 4,000 in a day.” The women working on the rellenos slide over so I can have a go: press, fill, seal, roll. Each ball goes to Doña Emi for the hard part — frying. She dips them by hand, reads the heat of the oil by sound and lifts each one out when it’s reached a uniform deep gold.

The sun is rising over Illimani when Doña Emi scoops out the last relleno. We need to deliver the final batch to her three city-centre stands, but first she needs to “ponerse guapa” — make herself look beautiful. She returns in an electric-pink pollera, an alpaca shawl pinned with a pearl and ruby brooch, and a chocolate-brown bowler hat. She flashes her gold front tooth and waves me into the van.

When we arrive at her stand in front of the basilica on Plaza de San Francisco, a queue of locals has formed. “Rellenos have changed my life,” says Doña Emi, handing out peanut and locoto verde (green chilli pepper) sauces to customers. “They bought the clothes I’m wearing, my house, my cars… I love my rellenos more than my husband,” she says, letting out a wicked laugh.

My time in La Paz ends back in Zona Sur, with an Amazon-inspired dinner at Arami — a new restaurant from Marsia Taha Mohamed, who was named Latin America’s Best Female Chef 2024 by Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants. She steps out from the open kitchen as I arrive to talk me through the menu, which includes caiman, and the producers behind it. “We work with Amazonian communities to responsibly source ingredients,” says Marsia, dressed in black skinny jeans and an oversized blue shirt. “It’s not about shock value — it’s about supporting producers and protecting Bolivia’s Amazon through better food practices.”

I start with a carpaccio of yacaré caiman sourced from a community programme developed with the Wildlife Conservation Society and Tacana Indigenous group. The project provides income to Indigenous families while helping to keep caiman populations stable. The caiman, cured in citrus for 12 hours like ceviche, tastes closer to fish than meat, while passion fruit and overripe banana provide a delicious sweet-and-sour flavour.

My favourite dish is the butterflied piranha. It’s visually striking — the fish is served whole, head and razor teeth included — and the flavour is just as bold: the skin is perfectly crisp and slightly sour from fermented yuca batter, which pairs beautifully with the sweetness of the sticky coconut rice and spicy sriracha sauce. “When people think of Bolivia, they think Andes,” says Marsia. “But Bolivia is over 60% Amazon — I want to showcase the diversity of ingredients we have and support the Indigenous communities behind them.”

My meal ends with an Amazonian vanilla and honeycomb ice cream, paired with a Bolivian vermouth. As I savour the final spoonful, I think of the women who’ve shaped every meal I’ve eaten here. Chefs like Marsia, Valentina and Doña Emi, who are defining a culinary future built on Indigenous knowledge, native ingredients and the quiet determination of the country’s greatest strength: its women.

More restaurants to try in La Paz

Ancestral: Wood fire is the secret weapon of Ancestral, an open-grill kitchen showcasing Bolivian produce cooked over flames. Rib-eye steak is the headline dish. Other standouts include smoked trout, served with a fennel and burnt butter risotto, and grilled mushroom ‘ceviche’ with sweet potato and ají amarillo. Mains around 150 BOB (£16.50).

La Gaita: In central La Paz, between the Gran Poder and Miraflores neighbourhoods, this salteña spot is a favourite among the city’s top chefs. Opt for the classic beef version of this local stuffed empanada, or stay for a three-course almuerzo (lunch) of Bolivian classics. Dishes around 29 BOB (£3).

Gustu: La Paz’s first fine-dining restaurant has been the training ground for many of Bolivia’s top chefs. More than a decade since it opened, it remains one of the city’s best: expect an eight-course tasting menu built from 100% Bolivian produce — Amazon river fish, Altiplano tubers and local grains like quinoa and cañahua — with a focus on lesser-known native and wild ingredients. Eight-course tasting menu 560 BOB (£61), excluding wine.

Ali Pacha: Ali Pacha — meaning ‘plant universe’ in Aymara — is La Paz’s first and only high-end vegan restaurant, tucked just off Calle Colón in the city centre. Chef Sebastián Quiroga’s dishes focus exclusively on sustainably sourced vegetables and grains like quinoa, corn and Bolivia’s many varieties of potato. The black quinoa tempeh with a chilli emulsion is delicious. Mains around 200 BOB (£11).