Carmen, El Poblado
Carmen sits on Carrera 36 in El Poblado, in a 1940s house that the chef Rob Pevitts has occupied since the restaurant opened in 2010. It is, primarily, a serious restaurant — a fixture on Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants for nearly a decade — but the bar runs as its own working operation. The drinks programme leans toward Antioquian botanicals (tagua, achiote, lulo, guanábana, the wild fruits that grow on the slopes around the Aburrá valley) and Colombian rums. Rather than a conventional review, the chef sent us a handwritten note about the bar.
Carmen Restaurant
Carrera 36 · El Poblado · MedellínThank you for asking about the bar at Carmen. We have been working on the bar programme as long as we have been working on the food, and I think the bar deserves to be talked about on its own terms rather than as an extension of the dining room.
The bar uses ingredients that we cannot ship to a restaurant in New York or Madrid without losing what makes them interesting. Tagua — a fibrous nut from the lowland coast — gives our house syrup a milky, almost coconut character. Lulo is a sour-citrus fruit native to the Colombian Andes that goes into our daiquiri variation. Guanábana we use carefully, in our late-evening sweeter drinks, because it carries the kitchen smell of the country at night.
If you visit, please order the Carmen Sour first — it is built on Colombian rum, lulo, lime, and a small dash of bitters made from achiote. After that, ask Maria or Jorge what they are doing with tagua syrup this week. The third drink should be off-menu; tell them what you have liked and they will build something.
Pair the drinks with whatever the kitchen sends out. The food and the bar are working in conversation rather than as a pairing menu; both should be taken seriously.
Sincerely,
Carmen takes restaurant reservations through OpenTable and via the restaurant's website. The bar accepts walk-ins; the right time to come for drinks is 6.30pm onwards, before the dining room fills. Cocktails run 35,000-45,000 pesos. Closed Sundays for dinner; the bar opens Tuesday through Saturday.