About Medellin Foodies
We are a group of foodies in Medellin that get together about twice a month to try out a new restaurant and review it.
We typically meet up on Wednesday or Thursday evenings, and sometimes on weekends. The meal varies from breakfast, lunch and dinner. To stay abreast of upcoming meetings take a look at our calendar and like our Facebook Page.
Our intention is to visit new places in different neighborhoods; however, most of Medellin’s top restaurants are located in Medellin Poblado or Laureles, so the majority of the meet ups take place there. Nevertheless we have visited restaurants in many different parts of the city like Envigado, Centro, Itagui, Buenos Aires and Belen.
Sometimes we visit famous, high-end (a bit more expensive) restaurants like Brulee, La Matriarca, La Chagra and Il Castello. We’re constantly finding hidden gems, it’s great how you can find some of the best restaurants in Medellin in the least likely areas.
The idea is to try new places, meet new people from all over the world, eat food from different countries and write reviews about the restaurants.
Andrew and I (Silvia) came up with the idea in July of 2017. We are the founders of the group and the organizers of the Medellin Foodie events. We both love food, trying out new restaurants and exploring the city. One day we were having breakfast at El Viejo y el Pancake, an American breakfast place owned by a lovely American-Colombian couple and while talking to other customers at the restaurant we realized lots of expats love to eat out and explore new places just like we do. Thus we created this group and it started growing pretty quickly.
What is a foodie? People might have different understandings of the term, so let’s define it. Our definition of a foodie is a person that loves food and does not only eat out of hunger, but out of interest, curiosity and a sense of adventure.
Did you know that the term “foodie” emerged in the 80’s when a book called “The Official Foodie Handbook” was published. This book talked about the first foodies who made eating a hobby. They enjoyed everything from fine dining to comfort food.
Foodies enjoy high quality food; however, that doesn’t mean it has to be expensive. While there might be different opinions about what the “best food” is, there are some criteria we can use to define high quality food.
Some of the most important questions is: Does it make our taste buds happy? Are the ingredients fresh? Is the food highly processed? Does the cook use a lot of ingredients filled with preservatives and other artificial things we can’t even pronounce? Is the meal balanced and healthy?
Let me give you an example.
We have two hamburgers:
Hamburger A from the typical fast food stall and hamburger B from a small artisan food restaurant. Hamburger A uses cheap processed, frozen beef patties that consists of 30% real meat. The buns are from the supermarket and contain sugar and preservatives. They add different kinds of sauces which are high in sugar, fat and full of artificial colorants and preservatives.
Hamburger B has 100% beef. The patties and sauces are made on location from scratch. The buns are from a small, artisan bakery.
While people might argue which burger they like more, one thing can’t be argued. The burger from the small restaurant is high quality food and the other one isn’t.
I used this example because even though hamburger A may be delicious (some of us have been known to indulge in a giant street burger from time to time) we want to be conscious of our health and nutrition.
To be clear, we are not a bunch of snobs that only dine at the most expensive restaurants. Instead, we are people that love tasty, high quality food from different parts of the world. We get together, try restaurants with different types of cuisines in different parts of Medellin and share our experiences.
