Las Condes and Vitacura

For Sunday brunch and fine lunches, the hands-down choice is Café Melba (Don Carlos 2898, tel. 02/2324546), just around the corner from the British Embassy on Avenida Bosque Norte. There’s sidewalk seating, and the omelettes, fresh juices, and similar breakfast fare are unmatchable in their category.

Its menu no longer so limited as its name might suggest, the cheaper New York Bagel Bakery (Roger de Flor 2894, tel. 02/2463060) is producing more complex sandwiches as well as just its signature item, supplemented by fine pastries.

The best pub grub is at Flannery’s Irish Geo Pub (Encomenderos 83, tel. 02/2336675), which offers a variety of lunchtime specials (US$5–8), along with Guinness and other imported beers on tap. Da Dino (Av. Apoquindo 4228, tel. 02/2081344) has one of the city’s finest, most diverse pizza menus.

Almost in the shadow of Las Condes [1]’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Kiwi-run Akarana (Reyes Lavalle 3310, tel. 02/2319667, www.akaranarestaurant.cl [2]) is Café Melba’s elegant, full-service restaurant. Occupying one of the area’s few surviving WWII vintage houses, with both interior and stylish open-air seating, it serves entrées ranging from pumpkin ravioli (US$12) to New Zealand fish and chips (US$13), Moroccan-style lamb filets (US$18), and Juan Fernández crayfish (US$31). Appetizers include calamari salad (US$7.50) and Cajun carpaccio (US$8); there are also individual gourmet pizzas (around US$7.50) and a midday business lunch (US$12.50) with choice of entrées and dessert, along with a soft drink or glass of wine.

Except for a few boned cuts, nearby Happening (Av. Apoquindo 3090, tel. 02/2332301) imports its beef directly from Argentina (sanitary regulations prohibit shipping boned meats across the border). The results are well above average, as are the prices, with the cheapest entrées around US$12 and most substantially higher. There are a couple of fish dishes, the odd pasta, very fine desserts (try the dark and white chocolate mousse with a mild mint sauce, US$7), and a gigantic wine list. The building itself is an older house, its interior walls demolished to form a spacious, luminous dining room, with a small nonsmoking section.

Noncarnivores should look to the midrange El Naturista (Av. Vitacura 2751, tel. 02/2365147), though it’s not in the class of Providencia [3]’s El Huerto.

The Hyatt Regency Santiago’s highly regarded Anakena (Av. Kennedy 4601, tel. 02/3633177) has one of a handful of Thai menus in town. Popular with the diplomatic corps, Shoogun (Enrique Foster Norte 172, tel. 02/2311604) is an upscale Japanese venue.

La Cocina de Javier (Alonso de Córdova 4309, tel. 02/2456317 or 02/2061329) fills up fast even on weeknights, partly because chef Javier Pascual Sáenz has his own cooking show on TV Nacional but mostly because the fish (particularly the trout) and seafood (particularly the corvinas) are first-rate. Entrées are in the US$15 and up range, the portions are modest but tasty, the desserts good and reasonably priced, but the house wines are mediocre.

Las Condes [1] now has two fine ice creameries within sight of each other: Fragola (Av. El Bosque Norte 0166, tel. 02/3332029) and Tavelli (Isidora Goyenechea 2891).