If you ask chef Nelson López where to start at La Makha, the answer comes down to three dishes: the Corn Crisp, the Rice and Beef, and the Catch of the Day. That’s a starter, a main, and another seafood option that together sum up the cocina de origen logic behind the restaurant.
It’s not a random pick. All three share something: they start from a specific local ingredient and put it at the center of the dish, instead of hiding it behind an overly complicated technique. Here’s what each one brings, what it costs, and why it’s worth starting there if it’s your first time at the restaurant. If you want to lock in a table before reading on, you can book at La Makha directly.
Who picks these recommendations
Nelson López is La Makha’s executive chef, and these three dishes are the ones he himself points to as a starting place for anyone new to the menu. They’re not necessarily the best-sellers or the most expensive options; they’re the ones that, in his view, best explain what the kitchen is trying to do when it takes a Colombian ingredient and brings it into fine-dining territory without losing sight of where it came from. Ask a different chef and you might get a different list, but this is the one that currently frames how La Makha wants to introduce itself.
That selection also works as a reading map for the rest of the menu. If you understand why these three dishes are on the list, it’s easier to predict whether the rest of the menu will work for you, because the same logic (a specific local ingredient, visible technique, little reliance on sauces that mask the base flavor) repeats through nearly everything else the restaurant serves.
Corn Crisp: a tribute to native corn
The Corn Crisp is the most representative starter on the menu, and it’s no accident that it’s one of the chef’s three picks. It’s corn from Montes de María with a tuna tartare, mushroom emulsion, and sorrel paste, finished with brown butter and freshly squeezed lemon. It’s rounded out with a scallion powder, touches of mushroom aioli and oxalis from the Bogotá savanna, and closes with a cheese “earth” and green oil. It costs COP $45,000.
What makes this dish work as the menu’s flagship is that it sums up La Makha’s core idea in a single bite: a specific Colombian product (not “corn” in general, but a native variety from a particular region), technique that respects the ingredient instead of disguising it, and a layered build where each element (the lemon’s acidity, the richness of the brown butter, the crunch of the corn, the cheese earth at the end) plays a distinct role without needing a single sauce to tie it all together.
Rice and Beef: reinventing something everyday
The chef’s second pick takes something as common as rice and beef and gives it a full makeover. It’s beef morrillo braised for 12 hours at low temperature to guarantee tenderness and juiciness, served with a chalaca salad, fried rice, a beef glaze, and a yellow chili aioli. It’s topped with a soy-cured egg yolk and garlic oil powder. It costs COP $62,000.
This dish makes sense as a recommendation because it’s the perfect entry point for anyone who wants to try cocina de origen without straying too far from the familiar. There’s no exotic ingredient to explain; what changes is the time put into the morrillo (12 hours at low temperature, until it falls apart) and the detail of the cured yolk, which elevates something homestyle into fine-dining territory without losing what it actually is: rice and beef, done well. The yellow chili aioli and the garlic oil powder aren’t garnish, they’re what cuts through the richness of the yolk and keeps the dish from feeling heavy.
Catch of the Day: the menu’s seafood pick
The third recommendation shifts territory entirely. It’s a fresh, homemade rigatoni-style pasta with a prawn stew, fresh queso de hoja, and mushroom powder, served alongside very fresh white Pacific fish bathed in mandarin lemon meunière, finished with lemon zest. It costs COP $112,900, the most expensive of the three, and also the one that best represents Colombia’s Pacific coast within La Makha’s menu.
The prawn stew is a traditional Pacific coast preparation, and here it stays recognizable while being refined with the fresh homemade pasta and the citrusy meunière. The Corn Crisp already brings the Caribbean to the table through the Montes de María corn; the Catch of the Day adds the Pacific coast through the white fish and prawn stew. Between those two sea-and-land recommendations, the Rice and Beef sits as the criollo point that doesn’t depend on a specific region, but on a preparation any Colombian would recognize.
If you’re pairing any of the three with a cocktail, the Corn Crisp and Catch of the Day work well with citrusy, light options like the Esfumado or Silencio from the signature bar, while the Rice and Beef, more substantial, pairs better with something with more body like the Sabroso.
What the three dishes have in common
None of these dishes rely on an ingredient you couldn’t place on a map of Colombia. Corn from Montes de María, beef morrillo, prawns and white fish from the Pacific: each recommendation has a specific origin, not a generic one, and that specificity is exactly what chef Nelson López seems to prioritize when deciding what to show someone new to the restaurant first. It’s also no coincidence that the three cover different territory: the Caribbean through the corn, the Pacific through the prawns, and a criollo classic with no fixed region in between, as if the sequence were built to give a sense of Colombia as a whole in a single meal, not just of what tastes good.
There’s also a progression in price and complexity: COP $45,000, COP $62,000, and COP $112,900. If you’re only ordering one of the three on a budget, the Corn Crisp gives you the most affordable entry point into the full range of what the restaurant does. If you have room for two, the Rice and Beef complements it well because it shifts register (from a cold starter to a hot main) without leaving the mid-price range. And if budget isn’t the issue, all three together already give you a fairly complete picture of what this kitchen can do, without needing to go for the full tasting menu.
These three don’t exhaust the menu, of course, and that doesn’t mean they’re the only right way to start. They’re simply the answer the chef gives when someone asks him directly where to begin, and following that answer takes the guesswork out of a first visit. If you want to see the rest of the options before deciding, the guide to what to order at La Makha covers the full menu with more detail on prices and combinations. And if you’re curious where each ingredient in these three dishes actually comes from, it’s worth checking out the article on La Makha’s local ingredients, which goes deeper into the producers and regions behind the menu.
If you’ve already decided which of the three you’re starting with, book your table at La Makha.
