Food Tour in La Candelaria, Bogotá: Street Food, Obleas & Coffee

The Arepa

The arepa is the starting point for most Colombian food conversations, and La Candelaria is one of the best places in Bogotá to encounter it in its proper context. The corn-based staple has been eaten in what is now Colombia since before the arrival of the Spanish — clay grilling slabs dating to pre-Columbian times have been found across the country — and it has survived every transformation of Colombian culture since then. Each region has its own version, shaped by local corn varieties, climate, and culinary tradition. In Bogotá and the surrounding Andean plateau, the typical arepa is thinner and lighter than the thick corn cakes of the coast or the egg-stuffed fried versions of the Caribbean. Your guide explains these regional differences as you eat, which turns a simple corn cake into an entry point for understanding the geography of Colombian food.

The Almojábana

The almojábana is less internationally known than the arepa but equally embedded in the culinary identity of the Colombian interior highlands. Made from cornmeal flour and cheese — kneaded until the cheese is fully incorporated, formed into rounds, and baked — it is a food that arrived with the Spanish colonial administration and has been adapted so thoroughly into the local diet that it no longer reads as imported. It is traditionally a breakfast food, sold in the mornings from small bakeries and vendors across La Candelaria, and it pairs naturally with the hot beverages that characterize Andean food culture: coffee, hot chocolate, or agua de panela.

The Obleas

The obleas section of the tour engages a completely different set of flavors. The wafers themselves are neutral and almost papery — their function is structural, and the experience is in the arequipe that fills them. Arequipe is Colombia’s name for what the rest of Latin America calls dulce de leche: milk and sugar cooked together at low heat for hours until the proteins caramelize and the liquid thickens into a dense, amber paste with a flavor that is sweet but not simple. The traditional oblea vendor assembles the dessert to order, layering arequipe — and sometimes bocadillo or fruit — between the two wafers and pressing them together. The practice goes back to the 19th century and is one of the most specifically Bogotano food experiences available to a visitor.

Chocolate Santafereño

Chocolate santafereño is made from ground cacao tablets rather than processed powder — thicker and darker than most international versions of hot chocolate, with a flavor closer to unsweetened baking chocolate than to a European drinking cocoa. The tradition of serving it with a piece of firm Colombian cheese for dunking is specific to the Andean interior and dates to the colonial period — it was the standard breakfast drink of Bogotá’s households for centuries and remains so in many families. La Puerta Falsa, the oldest restaurant in Bogotá, open since 1816 and located just off Plaza de Bolívar, is famous for its chocolate santafereño. The combination of the drink and the neighborhood gives it a context that nowhere else can replicate.

Chorro de Quevedo

The tour ends at Chorro de Quevedo Square, the founding plaza of Bogotá and its oldest public space. Today it is one of the most lively corners of La Candelaria — street musicians, artisans, university students from nearby faculties, and vendors who have been selling food and drinks in the square for decades gather here throughout the day. A cup of Colombian coffee in this square — at the end of a tour that has moved through the full arc of the neighborhood’s food culture — is a specific pleasure that the food tour is designed to arrive at.