Olan
Condell 200, 7500796 Providencia, Región Metropolitana, Chile
I found this restaurant when walking past, and looked it up online later. When I saw how many excellent reviews they had, I decided to go back and try it out.
Olan is located very close to Hotel NH Ciudad de Santiago where I was staying.
There seems to be more Peruvian restaurants in Santiago than Chilean restaurants. I had heard that Peruvian food was really good, but I had never actually tried it before except for ceviche.
Olan is a very large restaurant. It has a lot of seating area inside and what they referred to as the terrace outside. The terrace is an outdoor area with lots of seating, but it is behind a wall and is part of the restaurant itself, not tables put out in the sidewalk. I enjoyed sitting on the terrace, it was nice to have plenty of space at the tables and the seating area was not too crowded. They advertised having security cameras and the area felt very safe.
Olan has an extensive menu. For drinks they had sodas, beer, wines, coffee, and juices. They also offer a lot of mixed drinks, and some of them featured maracuyá juice, which I thought was unique. In general I have found that restaurants in Santiago tend to have a pretty thorough drink menu.
I ordered the ceviche criollo for $12,500 Chilean Pesos ($14 USD) and the chorrillana de camarones con quinoa for $10,500 Chilean Pesos ($11.80 USD).
The ceviche criollo was a plate half of ceviche and half of mixed fried seafood. Chorillana de camarones con quinoa was similar to a risotto, but prepared with quinoa. The quinoa was cooked with cream and parmesan. On top there were shrimp and onions.
They had three different options for desserts, each of them was priced at $5,400 Chilean Pesos ($6 USD). One was crema volteada, which looked similar to flan. There was also a torta tres leches, which looked like it was topped with caramel instead of whipped cream or merengue.
I ordered the suspiro limeño. Suspiro is the Spanish word for merengue. I mistakenly thought I was ordering a lime flavored dessert, and didn’t realize that since it is a Peruvian restaurant it meant in the style of Lima, Peru. The bottom layer of the dessert was manjar blanco, a milk based custard somewhat similar to sweetened condensed milk, but much better. It was topped with a big spiral of merengue.
The wait staff was very friendly, and I was very happy with all of the food that I got to try. The total bill for two meals was just under $40,000 Chilean Pesos ($45 USD), including the tip. Considering how expensive food can be in Santiago, I think this was a good price for what they served and I would definitely go back.