A friend told me about La Jardin. I had passed it already once, looked into the courtyard, found it curious but hadn’t bothered to look closer. Epic Fail! I have to be more curious.

La Jardin is a vagabond restaurant. It started in London as a private project called The Pale Blue Door, and has moved through the world, from London to Berlin, Buenos Aires, Valparaiso and now Santiago.

In each city the owners try to find a new, abandoned place. In each city, the restaurant will have its new, unique name. La Jardin is fitting, as the seating area outside, once an old factory’s storage lot, has been totally transformed.

It’s bound to disappear some day again, and the troupe will install themselves somewhere else around the globe.

The whole restaurant is made out of recycled materials, found or donated objects. The bar is constructed out of window panes, every chair and couch is different, the sun shades are just a bunch of broken umbrellas or clothes stitched together.

The plates, glasses and cutlery don’t match, the chairs have been repaired, sometimes just with a jeans jacket stitched over the seat, the arms wrapped around the legs.

 

The place also constantly evolves. Since its opening in 2012 it has been remodeled several times, and even I realized that in the last 10 days several things had changed, including a large sculpture rising from a dirt mountain right in the middle of the garden…

It’s a crazy place and you can spend a long time in there looking and discovering… if it wouldn’t be a bit weird because after all, people are eating at these tables and you might not want to zoom in on them. So I took my pics on a day when it was early and empty, the last full day in Santiago, for a beer and some pasta with Hannah.

It’s not only the style of the restaurant, the food is good, there’s salads, pasta, pizzas, a huge choice of cocktails and beers. I’m glad I made it to here before I left, this cool, relaxed space is just so fitting for this city.