Dishes have included tacacho de pescado with tucupí and arriero bocado, maíz and chorizo, arrechón, amasijos with carantanta and peanut ají, and an arepa de chichiguare with hogao. The whole menu is built as a journey through Colombia's five gastronomic regions, the Caribbean, Pacific, Andes, Orinoquía and Amazon, traditional cooking seen through a contemporary lens.

Edwin Rodríguez, from Bogotá, has more than 25 years in kitchens behind him and is the creative force behind Quimbaya, his flagship. He has been named an Embajador Marca País Colombia. By the restaurant's own account, Quimbaya is the first Colombian author-cuisine restaurant in Spain to win a Michelin star, held since 2022 and renewed every year through 2026, and it has held a Repsol Sol over the same years.

The restaurant is clear that, although Colombia is the inspiration, this is not traditional Colombian cooking: it is Rodríguez's own cuisine, the food he grew up with seen through today's eyes. He likes to say that people link citrus to Peru and heat to Mexico, and that Colombian cooking is more balanced, with sweet notes, such as panela, playing a real part. There's no bread in Colombia, he points out, but amasijos, arepas and pandebono, which is why they get a course of their own, with a sweet panela butter and a savoury hogao butter.

After 15 years in Spain, Rodríguez opened Quimbaya on Calle Zurbano in December 2019, days before the pandemic. It closed almost immediately and couldn't reopen until September 2020; by March 2021 the Michelin Guide had listed it, and on 14 December 2021, at the gala in Valencia, it won its star, a surprise that wasn't on anyone's list of predictions. It was then the only Colombian restaurant in Europe with a Michelin star.

The early menus drew on Colombian literature as well as its larder: the 2022 tasting menu, Hojarasca, took its name and its stories from Gabriel García Márquez. The room has never gone in for tablecloths, and staff from the nearby Colombian embassy are among the regulars.

The menus travel through Colombia's five gastronomic regions, the Caribbean, the Pacific, the Andes, the Orinoquía and the Amazon, and are served to the whole table. Menú Clásicos Q (€85) gathers the house's emblematic dishes in five main courses and is offered Tuesday to Thursday at lunch and dinner and Friday at lunch; it takes about an hour and a half. Menú Experiencia Quimbaya (€140) runs about two hours, and the Gran Menú Quimbaya (€170) about two and a half, both Tuesday to Saturday.

The Gran Menú moves from amasijos (angelito bread with suero costeño, cassava arepa with hogao butter, pandebono with panela butter) through snacks such as tuna with patacón and oxtail with yuca, to sea bass with passion fruit, lobster with pipián and peanut, duck with yam and coconut, and suckling pig with plantain and cholupa, closing with champús and a selection of sweets named for Cartagena's Portal de los Dulces. Once you choose a menu, you cannot switch to a cheaper one at the table. There is also an à la carte.

Each menu has its own pairing: €35 with Clásicos Q, €80 with Experiencia Quimbaya and €95 with the Gran Menú, the last built on wines and Colombian fermented drinks. The by-the-glass list runs from Valdeorras Godello and Penedès Riesling to Ribera del Duero and Rioja reds and Perrier-Jouët Champagne.

Quimbaya serves lunch and dinner Tuesday to Saturday and is closed on Sunday and Monday. The room has eight tables looking into the open kitchen, a bar area and a private room for six, and the whole restaurant holds 55 for events. Book online through the reservation page, or by email or phone (+34 912 401 896). A card is registered to hold the table: cancellations or changes under 48 hours, or no-shows, are charged, and tables are held for 20 minutes. There is a waiting list for full days. Children are accepted from eight years old, and there are no high chairs or room for pushchairs. The team also runs events and catering, including a chef-at-home service.