In December, Colombian chef Álvaro Clavijo’s restaurant El Chato was named the best restaurant in Latin America by Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants, the first Colombian restaurant to claim the prestigious title. It is an award that assures guests arrive with an almost breathless anticipation at its singular prestige, the mystique of which is only heightened by El Chato’s all-black exterior in Bogotá’s upscale Chapinero neighborhood.

But to dine at El Chato is an experience that feels far removed from the pretension that such an award might assume, and certainly far from any unnecessary frills. Despite the rigorous investigation into ingredients and flavors that has underpinned Clavijo’s work from the beginning, his desire for diners flows outward. “I want everyone who eats here to leave content, of course. But I also hope they take away a new idea and impression of Colombia based on our work,” Clavijo said in an interview.

Stepping off the street and into El Chato, it’s clear that nothing is really hidden here. Certainly not the restaurant’s countless awards, condensed into a small pantheon at the entrance that seems, even still, to burst at the seams. Plaques and statues from Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants, honors from the Best Chef Awards, and countless others. As I was examining them all, the hostess pulled out another plaque they’d just received earlier that day; they were going to need to find some additional wall space for it.

But what is really on display is, as Clavijo says, Colombia and all it has to offer. Behind the glass case displaying El Chato’s awards is a production area surrounded by jars jammed with ferments, macerations, and all manner of unfamiliar ingredients and witchy-looking brews. They’re sourced from across the country, soon to be turned into something special. Terrines of herbs, spices, and liquids line the walls, surround the staircase, and twist their way upstairs.

On both floors, the process from ingredient to plate is all out in the open: downstairs at the bar and upstairs in the kitchen. Guests become spectators at the show, the constant hum of the kitchen as a gentle dance unfolding around them, as they sit surrounded by the very ingredients that will soon arrive on their plates.

Part of Clavijo’s effort to put Colombia front and center in his cuisine comes through a kind of show-and-tell interplay at the table. Before each course of the tasting menu arrives, guests are presented with a small wooden tray displaying some of the ingredients to come, a visual representation of the dish they are about to consume. “It plays an educative role for people,” Clavijo explained. “Not everyone has a point of reference for all these ingredients; not even Colombians know many of these ingredients, which are Colombian in origin.”

But just because you’ve seen the preview doesn’t mean you know what comes next. For one course, I’m presented with an empty seashell and a handful of golden gooseberries, known here as uchuvas. It’s followed by one of El Chato’s more iconic recent dishes: caracol pata de burro from Colombia’s La Guajira region, served in an uchuva sauce with nori and eaten over crunchy pork rinds.

Horseradish is a part of one of the desserts. From a gnarled knob of root placed on the table emerges moments later a delicate, almost too-beautiful-to-eat dessert, with just the slightest peppery kick amidst delicate sweetness. It’s accompanied by a tea made from mambe: a toasted coca leaf powder long consumed by indigenous tribes in Colombia’s Amazon.

The educational aspect of displaying each dish’s raw ingredients speaks to Clavijo’s desire to showcase Colombia, but it also serves a higher creative function. It is as if the expectant diner is being invited to step into the artist’s studio, seeing all his paintbrushes, acrylics and canvases, only to still stand in awe of how he brings it all together into a final masterpiece.

This is mysticism of El Chato. Everything is laid bare in an experience that even allows visitors to peek behind the curtain and into the kitchen itself. But there is an invisible magic that is the final touch, one that only Clavijo and his team can see. To eat at El Chato, then, is to sit back and watch the creative process unfold, becoming intimately aware that the creative spark that brings it all together exists somewhere far beyond the sum of each plate’s parts.

El Chato is wholly singular, but Clavijo’s magic multiplies. In the past few years, he has expanded his creative footprint across nearly an entire city block, no small feat in one of Bogotá’s most desirable neighborhoods. Just down the street from El Chato’s brooding black exterior is Selma, sunny yellow both inside and out. It offers a warm, welcoming take on food that fans will instantly recognize as Clavijo’s, despite how different the more casual menu feels from that of his flagship kitchen. A few more meters down the sidewalk still is his newest project, Ruda, a bar created within one of El Chato’s production spaces.

Ruda—rue in English—is woven into several of the dishes and drinks at El Chato, and is known for both medicinal and mystical properties. It has long been thought to attract opportunity and ward off the evil eye, a fitting emblem for this chapter of Clavijo’s growth. In addition to his bar and restaurant spaces in Bogotá, he has also expanded beyond Colombia’s capital, most recently with El Curato in Cartagena’s historic walled city.

These new projects represent more to Clavijo than simply extending his footprint or raising his profile; if the myriad awards on display at El Chato are any indication, there’s little left for him to prove on that front. For Clavijo, some of the most exciting developments on the horizon have more to do with remaining faithful to his foundation: El Chato.

“We’re looking forward to celebrating the 10th anniversary of El Chato, and we’re beginning the process of exploring whether we can turn the story of the restaurant into a book,” he explained. “Over the years, we’ve developed so many incredible recipes, and there are countless stories behind everything we’ve built here. I’d love to see something like that come to life.”

“With the team we’ve created, we’ve been able to develop these great additional projects and bring these new concepts to life across the country,” he added. “But El Chato remains the platform and the flagship for everything else I’m doing. My focus will always be on El Chato being the best it can be, and being happy with what I’m creating there.”