The most frequent question diners ask when they finish La Makha’s tasting menu is how those dishes are created. Not in the sense of the recipe, but in the sense of the process: what happens before a dish arrives at the table as part of a menu.
The answer is more concrete than it seems, and it has to do with an inversion of the usual creative process in author cooking.
Ingredient first, technique after
In most author restaurants, the creative process starts with the technique or the concept. The chef decides to use sous vide, or that the dish will have a temperature-contrasting element, or that the concept of that season’s menu is “sea and mountain.” The ingredient comes after, chosen to fit the previously defined technique or concept.
At La Makha the process is the reverse. The starting point is the ingredient: what arrived from the supplier this week, what is at its seasonal best, which Colombian product has the most interesting flavor profile right now.
When chef David Suárez Estrada works with the Yolombó Duck Magret, the starting point is that specific duck, from that specific region, with the fat and meat profile that Colombian altitude duck has. The question is not “which technique do I want to use” but “what does this duck need to be at its best version on the plate.”
Knowledge of the ingredient’s cultural context
An author dish at La Makha is not only technically correct. It is culturally coherent. The chef knows the context of each ingredient: how the communities it comes from use it, what traditional preparations exist around that product and which of those preparations makes sense to reinterpret with contemporary technique.
The North of Santander peach kimchi is an example of that coherence. The peach from that region has a natural acidity and a texture that make it ideal for Korean-style salt fermentation. But that technical decision is not arbitrary: the chef knows that peach, understands how it is used in local cooking and grasps what in that ingredient is amplified by fermentation.
The same applies to the Bahía Solano tuna ceviche. The Colombian Pacific tuna has a specific fat profile that determines how it responds to the acidity of mandarina lime. The chalaca, the spicy watermelon gazpacho and the fried caper emulsion are not decorations: they are flavor and texture decisions that respond to the characteristics of each of the star ingredients of La Makha.
Trial and error as part of the process
An author dish at La Makha does not arrive at the table the first time the chef thinks of it. The process includes tests, adjustments and, frequently, versions that do not work and are discarded.
When the team receives a new ingredient, such as the locally grown oyster mushrooms that appear in the third course of the tasting menu, the first step is understanding the ingredient in its natural state: texture, umami profile, behavior with heat, response to fat. That produces a map of technical possibilities.
The tests follow a clear criterion: the dish has to work without the diner needing context to enjoy it. An author dish that requires explanation for the diner to appreciate it has a design problem. The argument has to be in the flavor and texture, not in the story the server tells.
The oyster mushrooms with hazelnut plant-based butter and coconut emulsion arrived on the menu after several iterations where the mushroom’s texture did not produce the desired experience. The final result has a meaty texture and a umami profile that does not need animal protein to have presence on the palate.
The living menu as a system of continuous creation
La Makha’s living menu is not just a sourcing philosophy. It is a system of continuous creation that keeps the kitchen team in a state of permanent development.
In a restaurant with a fixed menu, the chef creates the dishes once, establishes them on the menu and the team executes them for months or years. The creative process is episodic: it happens when the menu changes. At La Makha, the creative process is continuous because the menu changes permanently.
That has a cost: the kitchen team needs to constantly adapt to new ingredients and preparations it has not executed before. But it also produces a level of technical mastery that teams at fixed-menu restaurants rarely develop, because they are permanently in learning mode. You can see how that reflects week by week in the seasonal menu at La Makha.
When the chef comes to the table
One of the things that distinguishes the experience at La Makha from other restaurants at its level is that the chef, when in service, usually visits the tables to explain the dishes. Not as a star chef performance, but as a natural part of the service.
That table visit is the moment where the creative process behind each dish becomes visible to the diner. Not as a prepared speech, but as a conversation about the ingredient, its origin and the technical decision that brought it to the plate in that specific form.
Diners who have lived that moment consistently describe it as the point that transforms the dinner into an experience of a different category. Not because the chef is famous or because the act has symbolic value, but because real information about the dish on the table changes how it is perceived and enjoyed.
Frequently asked questions
What makes a dish an “author dish” in the context of La Makha?
An author dish at La Makha has a verifiable Colombian ingredient as the protagonist, a technical decision that responds to the specific characteristics of that ingredient and a cultural coherence with the context the product comes from. It is not author because the chef signs it: it is author because it could not exist the same way in any other restaurant.
Does chef David Suárez Estrada create all the dishes on the menu?
The chef leads the creative process and makes the final decisions on every dish that enters the menu. The kitchen team participates in the testing and development, but the editorial criteria about what enters the menu and how it is presented belongs to the chef.
Can I see La Makha’s creative process in some way?
The most direct way is the full tasting menu, where each course reflects a specific creative decision. The chef’s table visit, when it happens, is the moment where that process becomes most visible. Booking in advance and indicating an interest in learning more about the dishes can help the team prepare that context.
