Chilean food is honest, filling, and heavily shaped by the sea and the land. It is not the most adventurous cuisine in South America, but at its best — fresh seafood, good wine, a slow weekend barbecue — it is very good indeed.
Seafood
Chile has one of the world's longest coastlines and its seafood is excellent. The standard is particularly high in port cities like Valparaíso and in the south. Look for locos (abalone), machas (razor clams, usually served with parmesan and white wine), centolla (king crab, a speciality of Punta Arenas), and piure (a weird, red sea creature that Chileans love and most foreigners find challenging). Caldillo de congrio — conger eel stew — is a national classic; Pablo Neruda wrote an ode to it.
Empanadas
Chile's empanadas are different from those elsewhere in South America. The most traditional filling is pino — minced beef, onion, olives, raisins, and a hard-boiled egg — in a large, baked pastry. They are eaten everywhere, at every social occasion, and are arguably the closest thing to a national dish.
Casuela and stews
Cazuela de ave (chicken stew with corn, potatoes, and pumpkin) is Chile's go-to comfort food. Chupe de mariscos is a rich seafood chowder. Curanto, traditional to Chiloé, is a feast cooked in a pit in the ground — seafood, potatoes, meat, and sausage piled together over hot stones.
Asado
Weekend barbecue (asado) is a serious ritual in Chile. Beef, lamb, and chorizo over charcoal, eaten slowly with wine and salad. In Patagonia, cordero al palo — a whole lamb roasted on a cross-shaped spit over an open fire — is the version to seek out.
Street food and snacks
Completo is the Chilean hot dog, loaded with avocado, sauerkraut, tomato, and mayonnaise. It is impossible to eat tidily. Choripán (chorizo in bread) is the barbecue staple. Mote con huesillo — a sweet drink of dried peaches and husked wheat — is the traditional summer street drink.
Desserts
Manjar (dulce de leche) appears in everything. Tres leches cake, torta mil hojas (thousand-layer cake with manjar between the layers), and sopaipillas pasadas (fried pumpkin pastries in sweet syrup) are the classics.
Wine
Chilean wine has improved dramatically since the 1990s. The main red grape is Cabernet Sauvignon, but Carmenère — which all but disappeared from France after a 19th-century blight and survived in Chile — is the variety most associated with the country. The Casablanca and San Antonio valleys (near Valparaíso) produce excellent whites, particularly Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. Wine is inexpensive by international standards. A decent bottle in a supermarket costs less than USD 5.
Pisco
Pisco — a grape brandy made in the Elqui Valley — is Chile's national spirit, though Peru also claims it. Pisco sour (pisco, lemon, sugar, and sometimes egg white) is the standard aperitif. Chileans also drink pisco with Coca-Cola (called a piscola), which is ubiquitous at parties.
Beer
Cristal and Escudo are the dominant mass-market lagers. The craft beer scene has grown significantly in Santiago and in tourist towns like San Pedro de Atacama and Pucón.