Because Santiago, Chile’s sprawling capital, is the gateway to some of the world’s greatest natural wonders — Patagonia, the Atacama Desert, Easter Island — many travelers understandably breeze through. It might not wow like Rio de Janeiro or Buenos Aires, but scratch the surface and the city is alive with music, art and nightlife, against the arresting backdrop of the Andes. Divisions still run deep, 50 years after Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s U.S.-backed coup d’état ushered in a 17-year dictatorship. Just four years ago, Chile exploded into cathartic and, at times, violent unrest, as hundreds of thousands of Santiaguinos protested social inequalities. The scars are there for all to see. But if you’ve made it all this way, you should give Santiago a chance to impress.
Recommendations
Key stops
- A hike to the top of Cerro San Cristóbal offers the best views of the city and the Andes Mountains, particularly after rain has cleared the air.
- The Persa Víctor Manuel flea market boasts music, art and good food on Saturdays and Sundays.
- The Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos tells the story of General Pinochet’s dictatorship, and helps to explain the Chile you see today.
Restaurants and nightspots
- La Pulpería Santa Elvira remixes seasonal Chilean classics and is one of Santiago’s most exciting restaurants.
- Salsoteca Maestra Vida, a two-room salsa club, gets going late and takes you through into the small hours.
- Blondie, a former cinema-turned-L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub, hosts a varied crowd.
- El Bajo is a plant-filled mezzanine bar beneath the GAM, an arts center in the historic Lastarria neighborhood that hosts exhibitions, book fairs and live events.
- Casa de la Cueca showcases Chile’s national dance, la cueca, and serves hearty dishes on the first Sunday of each month.
- El Portal Ex Bahamondes is the birthplace of the completo, Chile’s culinary obsession.
- El Franchute del Barrio is the lively setting for French-inspired weekend lunches.
- Café Escondido is a fun bar tucked down an alleyway in the city center.
Museums, galleries and shopping
- La Chascona, the former home of the poet Pablo Neruda, is stuffed with trinkets and collectibles.
- Factoría Franklin is a new arts and cultural space with stalls, creative workshops and AFA Galería, a modern art gallery.
- Centro Artesanal Los Dominicos, a former convent right at the end of L1 on the metro, is a one-stop shop for Indigenous handicrafts, leatherware and assorted artisanry.
- Metales Pesados and Ulises in the city center are two of Santiago’s finest bookstores.
Where to stay
- The Singular Santiago in Lastarria is an upmarket option with a smart rooftop bar and views towards Cerro San Cristóbal. Double rooms start from around 180,000 Chilean pesos, or about $204, for the night.
- The Hotel Boutique Castillo Rojo, in a renovated colonial mansion in the Bellavista neighborhood, is a boutique option with rooms starting from about 140,000 pesos.
- Hostal Forestal, a laid-back city center hostel, has private rooms with ensuite bathrooms starting from 32,000 pesos. A bunk bed in a six-to-eight-person dormitory costs about 12,000 pesos.
- Short-term rentals are abundant. Find somewhere along the metro’s L1 in Providencia or Lastarria to be close to the action.
Getting around
- Uber and Cabify compete for ride-hailing traffic, and both are safe and reliable. Taxis are fine, too, but you’ll nearly always have to pay in cash — make sure the meter is running before you set off. The metro is extensive and safe, but as with any city, watch out for pickpockets. Buses rattle along all of the main routes and are relatively cheap and easy to use.
- Streetside bike rental (download the Bike Itaú app) is a good option, but parking docks are concentrated in the wealthier neighborhoods. Be wary of disconnected bike paths and merciless bus drivers. On Sundays, many of the city’s main arteries are closed to cars for the Ciclorecreovía, an event that allows for leisurely exploration on foot and by bike.
Itinerary
Friday
7:30 p.m. Step to the rhythm of la cueca
To the uninitiated, la cueca, which was declared Chile’s national dance by the Pinochet regime in 1979, can appear a bewildering whirl of handkerchiefs and heels. Get the basics at la Casa de la Cueca, a cheerful dancehall at the top of a narrow staircase in the up-and-coming Matta Sur neighborhood. On Fridays, the establishment hosts dance classes (3,000 Chilean pesos, or about $3.40) to a live soundtrack of local musicians. María Esther Zamora and her husband, Pepe Fuentes, opened the space in 1996, bedecking it with flags and photographs of the city. Sadly, Mr. Fuentes passed away in 2020 and the pandemic nearly forced the place’s closure, but the dance classes — and raucous three-course lunches on the first Sunday of each month (22,000 pesos, book in advance) — show that la Casa de la Cueca is back stronger than ever.
9 p.m. Try reimagined Chilean classics
La Pulpería Santa Elvira, a few blocks south, has only seen its reputation grow since opening in 2018. The place has a cozy, front-room feel, with family photos on the walls and squat jars of pickles, peppers and spices dotted around. You can also sit outside in a courtyard on warm summer evenings. The chef Javier Avilés’ small menu, which changes often, remixes seasonal Chilean classics, such as a creative bread basket that plays on “la once,” a traditional afternoon meal. Others play with textures, like a pumpkin puree served in its hard skin. Three courses and a glass of local wine come to about 35,000 pesos per person. Book in advance via WhatsApp or on the website.
People drink in El Bajo, a plant-filled mezzanine bar under the GAM, a distinctive arts center that hosts exhibitions, book fairs and live events.
Saturday
10 a.m. Trace the scars of a violent coup
In a striking, container-like building, the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos is sobering but essential. The museum walks visitors through Chile’s dictatorship, from General Pinochet’s coup d’état on Sept. 11, 1973, that divided the country, to the nation’s return to democracy in 1990. A wall displaying the faces of the more than 3,000 forcibly disappeared or executed men, women and children, best viewed from the second floor, is chilling. The museum takes about an hour to visit and is free, although voluntary donations are encouraged if you choose to take an audio guide (available in English, Spanish, French or Portuguese). There is also an intuitive free smartphone app in Spanish or English. To book a guided tour for up to 15 people, email the museum in advance, and check the schedule for talks and events.
Peluquería Francesa
11:30 a.m. Visit a historic restaurant … for a haircut
From the museum, head up Compañia de Jesús, a colorful street bisecting Barrio Yungay, a gritty, low-rise neighborhood. (In 2022, the leftist millennial president Gabriel Boric and his partner, Irina Karamanos, shunned recent precedent and made the neighborhood their new home, rather than a lavish uptown residence.) Enjoy the politically charged murals splashed across historic buildings, and look for the 155-year-old Peluquería Francesa restaurant (where you can get good food, and, strangely, a haircut). Peer down Pasaje Adriana Cousiño, a beautiful passageway with checkerboard sidewalks and palm trees, where you’ll also find the Tetería Cleopatra, a feline tearoom. If you’d prefer coffee and no cats, then an americano and alfajor cookie at Café Cité, which has sleek metal furniture in a renovated historic building, will cost you 4,500 pesos.
El Franchute del Barrio
1 p.m. Cheer for your singing waiter
Take the metro down to Franklin, a booming commercial neighborhood full of surprises. There, in the Persa Víctor Manuel flea market you’ll find El Franchute del Barrio, a French-inspired restaurant cooking onion soup, duck a l’orange, tagines and crème brulée. Every inch of wallspace is adorned with art and photography, and shafts of light criss-cross the beams supporting the roof. Every now and then, the restaurant falls into awestruck silence when Carlos Díaz, a 31-year-old baritone-turned-waiter from rural Venezuela, bursts into song. Ask for the fresh oysters, which don’t usually make it onto the chalkboard menu the waiters pass between the tables. It’s walk-in only, so put your name down and listen to the regular cast of musicians who swing by — it’s worth the wait. The three-course lunch deal, without drinks, comes to 17,000 pesos.
2 p.m. Lose yourself in a flea market
After lunch, explore the Persa Víctor Manuel flea market, a former leather-tanning works that is one of the few spaces where Santiaguinos of different socioeconomic backgrounds mix. Start at Galería La Curtiembre, an art gallery where you can pick up stylized maps of the market, before venturing into the incense-infused alleyways with more than 1,200 stalls. Among the market’s characters are Carlos Escobar, who wears solderer’s goggles and sells old film cameras, and the collector Roberto Ávila, who has maps and monographs of Chile and elsewhere — some from the 1800s. Marvel at Bastián Cifuentes’ photography of the social unrest in 2019, and pick up colorful prints at the gallery of the muralist Alejandro ‘El Mono’ González (where you might meet the artist). For a post-lunch pickup, Kilig, next to El Mono’s stall, has the market’s best coffee.
Destilados Quintal at Factoría Franklin
3:30 p.m. Chill in the courtyard
A couple of blocks east is Factoría Franklin, a new labyrinthine arts and cultural space built in former pharmaceutical laboratories, and entered through a nondescript warehouse door. You’ll step into a courtyard with stalls and workshops offering kombucha, home-brewed beer and Destilados Quintal’s gin infused with native botanicals (a gin and tonic costs 5,500 pesos). Upstairs are the tiled workspaces of the Colombian coffee roaster Andariego and Bymaria’s pickle and salsa kitchen. Down the alleyway at the back is AFA Galería, a modern art gallery, and a large warehouse, which hosts art fairs and sales. The whole space is open daily, but it’s liveliest on weekends.
7:30 p.m. Try the original completo
As far as national cuisines go, a hot dog drowned in mayonnaise, tomato and mashed avocado might not blow you away. Still, you must try a completo. As the story goes, in the 1920s, a young Chilean man named Eduardo Bahamondes returned from the United States to Santiago with a simple hot dog, inflaming passions by adding toppings and quickly establishing a new national obsession. At El Portal Ex Bahamondes, the brightly lit, mirror-lined diner he opened in 1928 on Santiago’s Plaza de Armas, the most traditional combination is a vienesa italiana (named for the the avocado-mayonnaise-tomato layers that resemble Italy’s tricolor), but you could also opt for a chacarero: tomato, green beans, green chili and mayonnaise. A completo and a pint of Escudo lager cost 3,000 pesos each.
El Bajo
8:30 p.m. Drink in an artsy bar
Stroll from the Plaza de Armas to Lastarria, one of Santiago’s liveliest areas. Start at El Bajo, a bar under the GAM, the distinctive arts center named for Chile’s first Nobel laureate, the poet and educator Gabriela Mistral. After the presidential palace was bombed during the coup, the military junta ruled Chile from the tower above El Bajo until 1981. Order two pisco sours, one Peruvian (with egg white and lime) and one Chilean (sans egg, with lemon), for 6,500 pesos each. Then head to Café Escondido, a plaza with tables beneath a gnarled ficus tree. In his youth, President Salvador Allende lived next door. Order a carafe of borgoña for 12,500 pesos, a strawberry-infused equivalent of sangría, and sit back while roving musicians play Chilean classics.
11:30 p.m. Join an eclectic crowd on the dancefloor
Take an Uber downtown to Blondie, an L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub in a former movie theater which provides for a wide range of ages and tastes. Enter through a neon-lit shopping arcade, pay your 10,000-peso cover and descend a series of Escher-esque staircases with arcade games on the landings onto the dancefloor. The room has a podium in the middle, disco balls and a giant ceiling fan revolving slowly beneath glowing cubes. Drinks cost about 4,000 to 8,000 pesos. There’s also a small but intense techno room upstairs beyond a low doorway. If it’s not your scene, head over the muddy trickle that was once the mighty Mapocho River to lively Bellavista, where thumping bass lines compete with blaring cumbia. There, Salsoteca Maestra Vida (8,000 peso entry) is a good bet for all-night salsa.
Enter Blondie, an L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub in a former movie theater, via a neon-lit shopping arcade and descend a series of Escher-esque staircases with arcade games on the landings to reach the dancefloor.
Sunday
10 a.m. Hike a city-center hill
Clear a sore head with a sharp ascent up Cerro San Cristóbal, a green islet of native trees and plants in the city center. At 10 a.m., the cable car opens, getting you to the top in under 10 minutes (a hop-on, hop-off day ticket costs 7,900 pesos and includes the funicular railway and shuttle buses within the 1,821-acre Parque Metropolitana). If you’d rather do the hour-long hike, start at the Pedro de Valdivia Norte entrance. As you climb, enjoy panoramic views of the city and mountains, incongruously punctured by the 980-foot, needle-like Gran Torre Santiago, South America’s tallest building. Your reward at the summit is a mote con huesillo (around 2,500 pesos), a refreshing, sweet juice containing a rehydrated peach and a handful of corn, available from the many stands at Estación Cumbre. To descend, take the funicular down the far side, leaving you in Bellavista — and just a block from La Chascona, the poet Pablo Neruda’s quirky home.
