Tasting Atacama

At Awasi Atacama, Chef Sebastián Prieto and his team began developing the new menu with a question: what stories about Atacama could be told through food?

Rather than building the menu around a collection of individual dishes, they looked to the territory itself, drawing inspiration from its landscapes, ingredients, natural cycles, celebrations, and traditions.

The result is a series of seven dining experiences, each offering a different perspective on the destination.

Seven nights, seven perspectives

Blooming, San Juan, The Sal Route, Solstice, The Sky, Quincho, and Oasis: each explores a different aspect of Atacama through a multi-course menu.

Blooming takes inspiration from an ancestral Andean tradition in which llamas and other livestock are adorned with colorful wool and ornaments as an expression of gratitude and a wish for prosperity.

San Juan takes its name from the feast of San Juan Bautista on June 24, an important date in the ceremonial calendar of several Atacameño communities.

The Salt Route looks to the salt flats and ancient routes that connected Atacama with neighboring territories, while Solstice celebrates the longest night of the year and the beggining of a new seasonal cycle.

Sky turns to one of Atacama’s defining features: its clear skies, high altitude, and dry climate, conditions that have made the region one of the world’s most important places for astronomical observation.

Quincho centers on fire and the shared table, drawing from the tradition of gathering around the fire to cook and eat together.

Oasis explores the presence of water and agriculture in the desert, and the crops, orchards, and vegetation sustained by Atacama’s oases.

Within each experience, the concept unfolds from the first course through dessert. Ingredients, flavors, colors, textures, and techniques come together to interpret the story of the evening.

From territory to table

That principle remains central to Awasi’s approach to cooking: listen to the territory, highlight the ingredients, respect local traditions, and intervene only where necessary.

Contemporary techniques including fermentation, low-temperature cooking, foams, gels, and different treatments of a single ingredient sit alongside elemental methods such as fire, grilling, pickling, slow cooking, and dehydration. Technique is used to reveal something about an ingredient rather than disguise it.

Chañar, algarrobo, rica-rica, corn, potatoes, vegetables, and herbs connect the menus to northern Chile, while fish, seafood, and other proteins arrive from other regions of the country.

The intention is not to restrict the kitchen to what grows within San Pedro de Atacama. Instead, it is to create a Chilean cuisine that makes sense in the place where it is being served.

Beyond the desert

For guests staying several nights at Awasi, the changing menus offer another way of exploring the destination.

The desert encountered during the day continues at the table, but from a different perspective. A landscape seen on an excursion might reappear through an ingredient, a texture, a cooking method, or the story behind that evening’s menu.

And gradually, the familiar image of Atacama as simply a desert becomes more complex.

The aim is not simply for guests to taste Atacama, but to become curious about it.

If a dish prompts someone to ask why it is there, where an ingredient comes from, or what story inspired that evening’s menu, then the menu has achieved what it set out to do.

A way of discovering Atacama through its flavors, landscapes, and stories.