Vlog-style YouTube video by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting a day at Gustu in La Paz, Bolivia. Gustu is presented primarily as a culinary school (not merely a restaurant) that trains students using only Bolivian products and strong producer respect; the school runs multiple programs and community initiatives (street-food training called Summa Paieta) and places graduates in local businesses. The hosts tour the school, visit alumni-run cafés and street-food vendors, describe training details and program metrics, and experience a multi-course tasting menu prepared with Bolivian ingredients.
Questions this video answers
Approximately 12,000 ft.
$30 (students keep the uniform).
18 months (original program length).
13 schools.
About 2,500 graduates.
Chapters
Klaus Meyer is the founder of Gusto, which is an amazing restaurant. But it's so much more than a restaurant.
First and foremost, it's a school.
The only cost for the students is $30 for a uniform, and they get to keep the uniform at the end. So it's essentially free.
You will only find Bolivian products in the Gusto restaurant.
You won't find Coca cola or Mac and cheese on the menu.
Seriously, if you ask for it, they won't give it to you.
It is our first full day in La Paz and we haven't done much of anything except for get adjusted to the altitude. We are at 12,000ft.
You can tell?
Yeah, every time I go up the stairs, I'm a little winded. But today we're doing something we're really excited about.
We're going to have a culinary experience, is the only way that I know how to describe it. At a restaurant called Gusto, which has been consistently ranked one of the top 10 restaurants in Latin America. And just last year, the head chef was was ranked the top female chef.
In all of Latin America. Should be an awesome day.
We had no clue what kind of day we were in for.
We were greeted with some coca leaf tea, which helps with altitude adjustment. And right away we went on a behind the scenes tour of the whole building.
So this school is one of the most respected in the world. So I'm going to let Samaya explain it in detail so I don't leave anything out. Hi, how are you? Tell us about the school here.
Gusto, of course. Well, Gusto has been conceived as first in beginning as a school. This is not a restaurant with a school. This is a school that happens to have a restaurant. Actually, in Gusto school, we used to train people for 18 months in order to become great chefs or Baritz or sommeliers or everything. Now we have 13 schools open. We already graduated 2,500 people from those schools with a rate of.
Hiring of more than 70% of them. They are working already. So our main mission, to offer.
Technical training for the people that didn't have access to that and give them a chance to get jobs, is fulfilled with us. And they work in the main philosophy of Gusto, which is only Bolivian products. Respect for the product, respect for the producer, and feeling proud of what Bolivia can produce and what Bolivia can offer.
So, long story short, this place is awesome. We can't wait to eat here later tonight. And now we're going on a street food tour. They really want the street food culture to be better in Bolivia. They want people to know that it's healthy and good for you and you're not going to get sick. So they're actually trying to raining the street food ladies. So we're gonna go meet one now.
Our dinner reservation at Gustoo wasn't until 7:30, so Sumaya's goal for the day was to show us as many restaurants as possible that share the same values and to showcase some of their past students at work.
It's beautiful.
Suma paeta means well cooked, well prepared.
Suma paelleta, a good food. Okay.
So they've also started this initiative here called Summa Paieta.
Yes.
Really struggle with the name of that, where they're teaching the ladies who serve the street food how to do it clean and be nice to tourists. Pretty much, they're working with ladies all over town. She's brought us to one of the first ladies that she ever worked with, the sandwich that we're about to eat. This recipe has been in her family's for generations, and she's been serving this Sandwich for over 50 years. So she was just telling us through translating that her first memories of making the sandwich was 80 years ago when the place that we're sitting now used to be a lagoon. And she used to help her mom serve the food.
So crazy, when you ask her, when are you going to retire? She says, no, never. When I'm at home, everything ages. I'm sick all the time. I need to be here. So she's kind of our granny for the project.
So if you watch our vlog, you know, we love to try street food. We're always a little nervous. It's always a little bit of a risk. But it's nice to be able to come somewhere where we can feel comfortable that we're not going to get sick eating the food. I think this is a great process.
Yeah.
Sumaya told us that at first the ladies were really hesitant to be trained because it sounded too good to be true. Plus, they thought Goosetoo was after their family recipes. Now, with Christina's success, many of them want to be trained. Goosetoo started out training five ladies who sell street food. Their next goal is to expand their project to 500.
We are always down for midday coffee, and Sumaya knew the best place she wanted to take us.
We got to talk to the barista about how they roast their own beans every day. And then we got to try a coffee from a unique Bolivian bean called takesi with a special floral flavor. Due to the altitude.
We're at Our last stop before we go back to Gusto. This place is called Los Cunhapes. Everyone in the kitchen here went through the school at Gusto, so all the ingredients are from Bolivia. These are all foods that you eat at coffee time. It is named after.
These foods. These are the Los Cunhapes, and they basically translate to boobs because that's what they look like. And there's always two.
Mmm.
It smells like cheesy potatoes.
Everything they cook in this restaurant is cooked to order. So we had the best and freshest empanadas and fumeda that we've ever had.
Before we left, we got to talk to one of the sweetest chefs and learn about how her life was changed.
By Goose D.
She had heard about.
The school on the radio and decided to give it a try. 80 out of the 1000 people who applied that term were selected, and she couldn't believe that she was one of them. She said she learned more than she ever could have imagined in the six month program. It was so fun to see her so happy and eager to keep learning, knowing that without Gustoo, she may have never found this passion.
Sumaya has already pretty much given us the greatest Bolivian food tour of all time, and we haven't even had dinner yet. So I'm really hoping that I'm hungry again in two hours when our dinner reservations are. We just got back to Gusto, and the other guests are supposed to arrive in about 30 minutes, so we're going to show you around the restaurant. The sommelier here is about to brief all the staff. They give all the details on each reservation and each table that's going to be here so they can get their order completely right if they have any allergies for what language they speak, because the Gusto standards are very high, so they make sure that everybody's on the same page.
Today has been so mind blowing. We thought dinner was going to be the highlight of the day, and it still might be. But if the day ended right now, I would be happy. We have learned so much about this awesome place.
We've been hanging out with the Gustoo crew all day, and it's finally time for dinner. We're having our first course. Some kind of cheese and mushroom topping paired with a carrot to juice cocktail.
So simple and so delicious. I'm pretty sure I'm going to say that about everything tonight. So Camilla, the chef here, uses all Bolivian ingredients, but doesn't necessarily cook Bolivian recipes. All of her recipes only use about two to three ingredients to showcase the best way that ingredient is tasted.
So this is our third course. If I'm being completely honest, I didn't fully understand what exactly it all included, but I do know that there is mousse made from the heart and the liver of a duck. My taste buds are not complex enough for goose stew. It's delicious, though. I need to watch more Food Network so I can really get, like, the sophisticated explanations of the food down. We don't have time for that. Making too many vlogs.
What makes this meal even better is that we have the best view of of pretty much the best chefs in Latin America right behind us. Gracias.
So she just told us that this next dish that we're having is basically the essence of late night drunk food boiled down into one bite. They make this, like, really spicy potato mix that they serve really late at night, and that's what we're eating.
It's not as spicy as I expected, but like everything else, absolutely delicious.
This is our ninth course, maybe. And he told us we are finishing the snack portion of the menu with lightly seared dinner.
So the first course of the main portion of the meal is Amazonian catfish paired with the local craft beer.
I feel like we don't even need to give the reaction because every course is amazing. It is delicious. So our next course is Amazonian alligator done like ceviche, so cooked in the acidity of lime mixed with strawberries. And I believe it's like the rind of a watermelon. So they try to waste as little as possible here. So they figured out how to make the rind of a watermelon edible by pickling it. So a very unique combination.
So I haven't had a ton of alligator in my life, but this is.
By far the best I've ever had.
Our next course, I've lost count of how many we've had is llama tartare. It took away our silverware, so I think we equally like a llama taco.
So Karen and I were just, like, obsessing over this white wine that we had that's obviously not white anymore. The sommelier just came over, and he poured beetroot syrup in our white wine. Explained that two years ago, his favorite vintage was, like, much more earthier and sweeter from the same producer, and for some reason, it's not anymore. And so to make it earthier and sweeter, he's poured beetroot syrup into our favorite white lunch. So.
Surprisingly delicious, or unsurprisingly, because that's how everything is here. They've also brought out our next course, which is some kind of. What is it?
This was, without a doubt, one of the most amazing meals of our entire life. We want to say thank you to Gustoo so much, not only for the amazing meal, but for the amazing day.
