Llajwa. Cuñapé. K’awi. Mocochinchi. Unless you’re Bolivian, these words might not mean much to you. They don’t have the familiar contour of Spanish vocabulary—they come from Indigenous languages like Quechua and Guaraní—and haven’t entered the DC foodie lexicon as pupusa, kitfo, and pho have. But they belong there.
The Washington area has the largest population of Bolivians outside South America—somewhere around 60,000. Since their numbers began increasing in the 1980s, Bolivian immigrants found ways to gather around food: Backyard chicherias sprang up in Fairfax to serve fermented corn drinks. A Ballston Italian place had a semi-secret Bolivian menu. Cinnamon ice cream was scooped at community soccer games. Now the region is home to dozens of Bolivian restaurants.
Bolivian food is mostly hearty mountain cooking: “meat and potatoes” accurately describes a number of traditional dishes. Still, simple preparations belie a complex culinary history that merges ingredients from Incan times with European and Amazonian techniques. The following affordable eateries are our favorite places to explore the cuisine.
Luzmary
location_on7151 Lee Hwy., Falls Church
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The name Luzmary is a portmanteau, blending owner Marisol Gonzales’s name with that of her mother, Luzmila Ampuero. It’s also an evocation of Luzmila’s, Ampuero’s long-running Falls Church restaurant, which the family sold when she temporarily moved back to Bolivia ten years ago.
You might chuckle when a plate of pique macho lands on your table here. The dish consists of a truly Andean mountain of French fries topped with morsels of steak, hard-boiled egg, and sliced hot dogs: Bolivian poutine. But as you work on it, the dish transcends its junk-food components. The fries begin to soften in their soy-spiked gravy, and the slivered red onions, chilies, and tomatoes brighten each bite. This isn’t a pile of loaded fries so much as a cousin of Peruvian lomo saltado, the Chinese-influenced stir-fry that also usually involves French fries. Still, the gut-buster shouldn’t crowd out space on your table for salteñas—sweet-and-savory empanadas containing brothy fillings. These are among the best in town.
Camba Cafe
location_on7177 Lee Hwy., Falls Church
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Bolivia is a geographically diverse country. Though most of the Bolivians in the DC area come from the mountainous west, there’s also a small community of easterners from “Camba,” a nickname for the tropical metropolis of Santa Cruz, the nation’s largest and richest city. At this Falls Church strip-mall cafe—the only Camba-style restaurant we’ve found in our area—the baked-goods cabinet gives you a clue you’re not in western Bolivia anymore. Empanadas de arroz, a Camba peculiarity, are squishy patties made from rice, yuca, and cheese, sandwiched together with a banana-leaf wrapper. Cuñapés—crispy, cheesy rolls made with yuca flour—will be familiar if you’ve ever tried Brazilian-style cheese bread. (Bolivia shares its longest border with Brazil.) And there’s the great majadito, a jambalaya-like red rice topped with yuca and plantains.
La Tarateñita
location_on4231 Markham St., Annandale
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Two years ago, Nancy Pinto found a modest storefront in the mainly Korean mini-mall called Seoul Plaza and devoted it to recreating the tiny Bolivian town of Tarata. Weekdays, when La Tarateñita serves set meals (called “completitos”), are the best time to experience what it’s like to wander into a workaday luncheonette in the Valle Alto, a rural region near Cochabamba, and get full on a dime. There’s a choice between two soups and at least two main courses, all of which change regularly. Try the chorizo tarateño, a style of delicate sausage as hyperlocal as any Tuscan terroir, served over cracked wheat.
Recently, the place also began offering a breakfast buffet with soul-warming api (a thick purple corn drink), pasteles de queso (sweet cheese-filled pastries), tojorí (coarse corn porridge), and humitas (tamal-like steamed corn cakes). “This is comida campesina,” Pinto says—peasant food.
La Cochabambinita
location_on6653 Little River Tpk., Annandale
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Many Bolivians in Northern Virginia come from the region surrounding the 450-year-old city of Cochabamba. Since 2012, this dining room has been reproducing its distinctive cuisine, serving dishes like lawa de trigo, a wholesome wheat soup; sweet-and-savory pot roast over macaroni; and silpancho, a huge flattened and breaded beef cutlet. Accompany it all with a mocochinchi, a dried-peach-and-cinnamon beverage.
Kantutas
location_on2400 University Blvd. W., Silver Spring
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Marinated and tenderized with fresh papaya, lapping tastes unlike any other grilled-beef dish we’ve tried. At Kantutas, a friendly restaurant with a full bar and a love for loud cumbia music, the huge flank steak is served over hunks of potato, an ear of choclo (large-kerneled corn), and starchy boiled fava beans. Kantutas moved to larger, airier digs two years ago and is now one of the most comfortable, accessible Bolivian spots in town, with a menu full of Cochabamba specialties. Charque, derived from the same Quechua word that gave us “jerky,” is a nest of crispy, salted shreds of beef mounded atop steamed hominy, fried potato, hard-boiled eggs, and a rustic white cheese. It’s a dish that feels like it could sustain you for a trek through the Andes—or a marathon soccer game on a hot DC afternoon.
This article appears in the September 2025 issue of Washingtonian.
