Drive an hour east into the hills of El Carmen de Viboral and also you’ll discover one other keeper of roots: La Casa de Vero. Operating on weekends and for particular occasions, the open-air restaurant is run by chef and cultural guardian Verónica Gómez, who embodies cocina de montaña with dishes that draw on household traditions and the land round her. Ingredients come from close by veredas, rural farming communities in the mountains, and the centerpiece is usually a effervescent pot of meat and vegetable sancocho simmering over wooden fireplace. The expertise feels much less like eating out than being welcomed right into a pal’s house, an immersion in Antioquia’s residing meals heritage. La Casa de Vero channels the intimacy of mountain cooking.
Sancho Paisa, in the meantime, embodies Antioquia’s different pole: the sprawling roadside feast. With two places alongside the freeway between Medellín and José María Córdova International Airport, it’s the form of place the place bandeja paisa arrives in unapologetic abundance—beans, chicharrón, arepas, and grilled meats stacked excessive—and the place weekends flip into household gatherings in the open-air pavilion. It bookends a Medellin journey completely, whether or not it’s your first cease off the aircraft or final style earlier than heading house.
In 2026, Medellín belongs on any traveler’s consuming calendar. It’s a metropolis that doesn’t simply feed you however pulls you into its rhythm, plate after plate, evening after evening. —Allie Lazar
Medellín additionally seems on our checklist of the Best Places to Go in Central and South America in 2026. Find extra causes to go to in 2026 here.
Minas Gerais, Brazil
Go for: celebrated cheesemaking traditions, highway journeys to vineyards, and previous mercados made new
Within Brazil, Minas Gerais is famed for a gastronomic tradition rooted in rural, homestyle dishes and farm-made elements—significantly, its cheese and occasional. But as these traditions and foraged meals discover their means onto tables in the capital metropolis of Belo Horizonte, a wider viewers is catching wind of the bounty this state is thought for. In December 2024, UNESCO acknowledged Minas Gerais’s artisanal cheese manufacturing as Brazil’s first food-related intangible cultural heritage, celebrating the 106 municipalities inside the state the place native cheeses have been made for greater than three centuries with nothing however uncooked milk, pure rennet, and the pingo (pure yeast) starter distinctive to every farm. Among these cities, Serro stands out for its gentle, barely tangy namesake product, and it has turn into the main focus of the state’s second official tourist route: With round 800 small producers and household farms in Serro, the self-guided path permits guests to faucet into the 300-year-old craft of cheesemaking and the enduring gastronomic heritage of Minas Gerais throughout the Cordilheira do Espinhaço mountain vary—and goals to enhance experiential journey and rejoice rural traditions. At Fazenda Ventura, amid grazing herds and rolling hills, the household will lead visitors from barn to dairy earlier than serving their award-winning cheeses; at Fazenda Córrego do Taboão, the expertise extends past cheesemaking to embrace a go to to the farm’s museum and watermill, ending with a wood-fired tasting of cheeses and traditional Minas pastries, all only a four-hour drive from the bustle of Belo Horizonte.
Meanwhile, Tiradentes—a village established in the 18th century and residential to Brazil’s longest-running gastronomy pageant—is experiencing a brand new ardour for wine. Pioneers similar to Vinícola Luiz Porto in city and Vinícola Trindade, which opened in close by Bichinho (5 miles away), are poised to develop wine tourism: Visitors can now style Sauvignon Blanc and Syrah wines whereas gazing on the lush Serra de São José, or pattern them straight from the tanks contained in the cellars. A 50-minute drive from Tiradentes takes guests to Mil Vidas, the place the enological expertise begins with a guided tour of the winery, specializing in the particularities of cultivation—particularly the dupla poda (double pruning) method that enables for winter harvests in Brazil—adopted by a wine pairing with 5 award-winning cheeses. As for the Tiradentes Cultural and Gastronomy Festival, the primary version of which happened in 1998, when Tiradentes had only a few eating places, the custom continues each August, highlighting how far the meals scene has come. Today, dozens of nice eating places line the city’s streets, from conventional joints like Tragaluz, housed in a 300-year-old colonial mansion and now joined by a extra trendy sibling, Lagar, to up to date spots similar to Angatu, the place younger chef Rodolfo Mayer provides native elements a recent twist.