The Restaurant
Here is the number that matters at Mesa Franca: dinner runs about $35 a head, and in 2022 the room placed No. 49 on Latin America's 50 Best. Those two facts rarely share a sentence. The restaurant fills a restored two-storey mansion on Calle 61, in the quiet La Soledad pocket of Chapinero, three blocks east of Avenida Caracas, with a red lacquered bar running the length of the ground floor, 1920s parquet underfoot and a glass-roofed patio out back. It seats about seventy, plus a private upstairs room for sixteen.
Iván Cadena runs the kitchen, and the training shows: he cooked at Astrid & Gastón and Central in Lima before bringing that ambition home to Bogotá at roughly a third of Lima's prices. The cooking is modern Colombian and produce-led rather than nostalgic. Look for the watermelon ceviche, the coconut shrimp with rice and crustacean broth, the corn empanadas with potato sofrito, and a grilled T-bone finished with tucupí. The menu turns over every couple of months, so treat any single dish as a suggestion rather than a fixture.
Mesa Franca was built as a restaurant and bar in one, which is the practical reason it works for a celebration: the small-plates format suits a shared table, and the night can slide from dinner into late drinks at that red bar without anyone calling a taxi. What you do not pay for is pretension. This is 50 Best cooking priced like a neighbourhood favourite, which is precisely why the neighbourhood keeps booking it.
Best for a Birthday
Book Mesa Franca for a birthday because it carries the whole arc of the night without effort from the host. The downstairs room takes long tables of eight to twelve, the upstairs private room seats sixteen, and the shared modern-Colombian format gives a celebration its natural structure. The bar means the evening does not end at the dessert plate, and the restored mansion flatters every photograph the night produces. For a milestone that wants ambition without a Lima-sized bill, it is the obvious Chapinero choice.
Not For
Not for a quiet, hushed dinner. Mesa Franca is a restaurant-and-bar that gets loud and late on Fridays and Saturdays, and a couple after a calm, conversation-led evening will find the room working against them. Come midweek if you actually want to hear each other.
The Questions People Ask
Is it worth it? Yes, on value above all. No. 49 in Latin America's 50 Best in 2022, Iván Cadena trained at Lima's Central and Astrid & Gastón, and dinner is about $35 a head.
What should I order? The watermelon ceviche, the coconut shrimp with rice and crustacean broth, and the corn empanadas. The menu rotates every couple of months, so stay flexible.
How do I book? One to two weeks ahead for a weekend dinner; midweek is easier. Closed Mondays. The bar runs late on Fridays and Saturdays.
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