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Cuenca
15m
Nestled high in Ecuador's Andean highlands, it's a place where indigenous traditions, Spanish influences, and generations of market cooks have combined to create one of the country's most distinctive food cultures.
Your feasting tour of 15+ tastings explores three of Cuenca's most beloved mercados, alongside street vendors, bakeries, and local institutions. We'll uncover the flavours, stories, and traditions that most tourists never encounter.
Before we get started, your tour reflects the local cuisine and the limitations of market vendors means we unfortunately cannot cater for every dietary restriction. Here's an honest appraisal for the tour so no-one is disappointed:
- Possible for mild peanut / tree nut and no seafood diets, though guests will have 2-3 fewer tastings due to limited alternatives at some stops.
- Unsuitable for vegetarians, vegans, pescatarians, no pork and halal diets, celiac disease, lactose intolerance, and severe allergies.
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Mercado 9 de Octubre
1h
We waste no time diving into the culinary action at Mercado 9 de Octubre, one of Cuenca's most cherished food markets. Here, breakfast and lunch traditions collide in a symphony of sizzling griddles and steaming pots. Fresh tortillas de trigo con queso emerge golden from hot pans, while sweetcorn is transformed into delicate tortillas de choclo, a dish with roots stretching back to the Andean civilizations that cultivated maize thousands of years ago. Alongside buttery cream biscuits known as galletas de manteca con nata, we'll sip morocho, a thick spiced drink made from cracked corn, milk, and cinnamon that has warmed Ecuadorians for generations.
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Cuenca
45m
Next, we board Cuenca's modern tram and glide through a city where centuries-old churches stand alongside contemporary life. It's a reminder that Cuenca has always balanced tradition with change. Back on the streets, we stop at a local vendor where some of Ecuador's greatest comfort foods await. Papas con cuero combines potatoes, pork skin, and a rich peanut sauce into a dish that's far more delicious than it has any right to be. Nearby, bolón de queso transforms green plantains into a dense, cheese-filled ball that's become a staple breakfast throughout coastal Ecuador. We also sample corviche, a crisp cassava fritter stuffed with seasoned fish, whose origins trace back to Ecuador's Pacific coast.
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Mercado 3 de Noviembre
45m
At Mercado 3 de Noviembre, the aromas become impossible to ignore. This market is famed throughout the city for dishes that have achieved near legendary status among locals.
We'll sample encebollado, Ecuador's beloved tuna soup, often described as the country's unofficial national dish. Originally a fisherman's breakfast from the coast, it's now eaten at every hour of the day. Alongside it comes succulent hornado, slow-roasted pork cooked until the meat becomes impossibly tender beneath crackling skin. A freshly fried empanada de viento, so named because it's mostly air when it leaves the fryer, arrives dusted with sugar and provides one of Ecuador's most beloved snacks.
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Mercado 10 De Agosto
45m
Our final market stop is Mercado 10 de Agosto, a place where traditional Cuencano cooking continues much as it has for generations. Corn is king here. We'll try mote pillo, a comforting combination of hominy corn and scrambled eggs that has become one of Cuenca's signature dishes. Nearby, mote sucio combines hominy with pork fat, proving once again that simple ingredients often produce the most memorable flavours. These dishes tell the story of the Andes, where maize has been a dietary cornerstone for thousands of years.
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Cuenca
30m
As the afternoon winds down, we make a few final stops that perfectly capture Cuenca's sweeter side. We'll sip refreshing agua de pitima, a traditional herbal drink long valued for its aromatic qualities, before sampling baked coconut sweets and flaky quince-filled empanadas that have graced local bakery counters for generations.
There's more to this Cuenca food tour than the dishes themselves. It's a discovery and understanding of the markets, traditions, and everyday food culture that define life in the Ecuadorian Andes. Whilst it's possible to wander these markets alone, you'd be hard-pushed to uncover these stories, flavours, and local favourites without your tastemaker guides.
