Café Pachamama
Our on-site restaurant, Café Pachamama, offers healthy and delicious fare and lots of vegetarian options.
What Previous Guests Have Said:
“Beautiful food and environment”–March 13, 2012
This would have to be the most beautiful food in Otavalo, in the most beautiful environment. The owner Maggie is so lovely and adds her personal touch and meets everybody. All the staff in the restaurant are just wonderful. And if there is a local folk band playing dont miss them for your wonderful entertainment over a fantastic dinner.
“by far the best in Otavalo…”–January 28, 2012
Great food, beautiful garden views, caters to American tastes but still serves Ecuadorian fare……..by far my favorite in Otavalo or Quito, and we’ve been here for 3 weeks.
“Best Place in Town”–December 15, 2011
Located in the Posada del Quinde hotel. They feature a blend of traditional Ecuadorean cuisine with some California-style refinements and some American favorites. Mostly organic food, everything was fresh and well prepared. Try the Quinoa Soup, for example. It’s a simple local staple, but all ingredients were fresh and delicious. You can sit near the fireplace, enjoy your meal and feel very cozy, indeed!
We seek out local foods when we travel. The Cafe Pachamama selection was much better than most of the options we found in Otavalo. You can eat salads, fruits and vegetables without worrying about the “local water.” Most food we found in Ecuador was relatively inexpensive, but this place is a delicious and very good value.
“Delicious Unexpected Dishes” – August 23, 2011
I stayed here for 4 days and ate here at least once a day everyday. The staff is lovely and the food is great. Their natural fruit juices are very tasty especially the tomato juice. Note that the tomatoes used are a lot sweeter than what I’m used to and it was a nice surprise to taste this juice.
The breakfast is included in the room rate and you have several options to choose from. While here I tried the tomato basil soup, Enchilada casserole, Ham & Cheese Panini, Eggs breakfast, Oatmeal breakfast and the quinoa soup. All very delicious!
And they have a water dispenser available in the restaurant and you can help yourself to as much of it as you’d like.
“Deliciously prepared, fresh, local produce, charming atmosphere” – August 18, 2011
Cafe Pachamama in La Posada de Quinde is delightful. The food is excellently prepared using fresh local produce. There is fireplace and traditional music on weekend nights. The service is friendly and efficient. I would suggest the fresh guacamole, the baked tomato and onion dish, the Maggie pizza, and the deep dish chocolate chip cookie with ice cream. Wash it all down with wine or fresh limonada!
“Stay long enough to sample the menu” – July 13, 2011
Cafe Pachamama is located in La Posada del Quinde Hotel, less than a five minute walk from Otavalo’s famous marketplace. They serve every meal from breakfast to dinner, offer takeout for those on the go, and cover the foods from eggs and omelets to aguacate rellenos and potpies to hamburgers and pizza. While the range of foods is initially daunting, it quickly becomes paralyzing once you are served and start eating.
I began with the aguacate relleno- each half of an avocado filled with tunafish. I went on a recommendation, not sure if I would really enjoy this. The problem was, I ended up eating this for three lunches, and barely got a chance to sample anything else on the menu.
The food is delicious. The restaurant is clean. And the atmosphere is comfortable and casual. Since the restaurant sits in the middle of the hotel, there is a wonderful sense of relaxation amidst the energy of people excited about being where they are.
I don’t know if the Friday night we were there was special, but a group of local musicians came in to play. This, combined with the weavings and other artwork on the walls, and the traditional dress of the servers, created a wonderful sense of the culture of Otavalo, and of Ecuador.
The danger of Cafe Pachama is that you might not try anything else. The upside of this is that you will not be disappointed.
“Great Vegetarian food” – May 22, 2011
Cafe Pachamama is located at the hotel La Posada del Quinde. This restaurant is quite beautiful. It has a large fireplace and looks out onto a wonderful garden. The decor is heavily influenced by Otavalian artwork. The food is excellent. My husband and I are vegetarians and sometimes restaurant selections can be limited. The food here has been creative and tasty. We have especially enjoyed the soups, sandwichs, salads and the black bean enchilada casserole and guacamole and chips. We have eaten in other places in Otavalo and this has been consistently good and our favorite place to eat.
“Good food, excellent service, high quality…….” – May 10, 2011
We thoroughly enjoyed eating at Café Pachamama in the Posada del Quinde Hotel. We stayed three nights in the hotel. We both thought, “it can’t get any better than this”, after our first morning of enjoying the ‘included’ breakfast of fruit, warm breads, local jams, eggs and coffee. Boy, were we wrong! The lunch and dinner menus, although limited, offered several excellent, well prepared choices. We would discover that most of the foods served in other local establishments were deep fried. So unlike a lot of the local cuisine, not only were the dishes served at Café’ Pachamama tasty but also a much healthier choice.
Absolute favorites were the stuffed green pepper and enchiladas, ” home made” guacamole and the pineapple cake made fresh daily. We know the staff visited the local morning market to purchase ingredients daily, on the way to work, because we followed the cook back to the hotel early one morning after a walk and her bags were full of pineapple and vegetables for the day’s menu. After inquiring, we learned this was part of the daily routine.
Eating dinner in front of the fireplace and talking with the other guests, heightened the eating experience to a superb level. We encountered guests who had moved on to other hotels and come back just to eat in the hotel’s restaurant. Only after touring a number of other places in Ecuador, ourselves, did we fully come to realize just how well prepared the food at Café Pachamama was. Although, it is not a five star restaurant, the staff, food, quality, ambiance, camaraderie make the restaurant an excellent choice when in Otavalo. We can recommend it as “the place” to eat in Otavalo.
