country Essentials · 12 foods
Uruguay Essentials
A considered first route through Uruguay: the foods that carry its everyday habits, celebrations, ingredients, and memory.
Explore all Uruguay foods →THE
ESSENTIALS
The complete shortlist
12 foods to know.
Each selection includes the reason it belongs here—so this is a guide, not just a pile of names.
Uruguay
Uruguayan Asado
Asado
Beef and offal cooked slowly over wood embers with salt and nothing else — the country's whole Sunday.
Uruguay
Chivito
Grilled fillet stacked with ham, bacon, cheese and a fried egg; there is no goat in it at all.
Argentina
Mate
Finely milled yerba packed tight in a gourd, never sweetened, refilled from a thermos under the arm.
Uruguay
Chajá
Postre Chajá
Meringue-crumbed sponge with peaches, cream and dulce de leche, invented in Paysandú in 1927.
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Fainá
Fainá con queso
Baked chickpea batter laid on top of a pizza slice and eaten as one — order it a caballo.
Montevideo, Uruguay
Capeletis a la Caruso
Cappelletti under a nutmeg-heavy cream, ham and mushroom sauce invented in Montevideo.
Uruguay
Pamplona
Boned chicken or pork rolled round ham, cheese and pepper, netted and grilled over embers.
Uruguay
Uruguayan Tannat
Tannat
A south-west French grape that found its home here in the 1870s and became the national red.
Montevideo, Uruguay
Medio y Medio
Half sparkling, half sweet white wine, poured cold at the Mercado del Puerto since 1886.
Colonia, Uruguay
Queso Colonia
Mild holed cheese made by Swiss settlers in Colonia and still the cheese in every chivito.
Argentina
Martín Fierro
Postre vigilante
A slab of quince paste against a matching slab of white cheese, cut to the same thickness.
Uruguay
Bizcochos
Flaky lard pastries in a dozen shapes, bought by the half-kilo to eat with morning mate.