When you’re on vacation in a new city with lots of places to go and nowhere to actually be, save the day for lunch. A long, aimless lunch in a particularly nice room is the kind of meal that will make you feel at home in a place you’ve never been before. Because beyond being stuck in yet another museum, this is the magic of traveling and leaving real life behind. And that’s what Prudencia in Colombia’s capital means.

Nestled in the shadow of misty Monserrate, amid the stone streets of La Candelaria, Bogotá’s oldest neighborhood, the restaurant feels like a secret. The graffiti-covered facade or the unmarked door give no hint of the wonderland inside, where a glass atrium opens the dining room to sunny skies and no one has anywhere else to go.

Time, in seemingly endless quantities, is the luxury Prudencia trades for. A lunch here can easily last up to four hours and has the unhurried quality of being hosted by wonderful friends in their home. In this case, those gorgeous friends are husband-and-wife owners Mario Rosero and Meghan Flanigan, who designed every detail to strike a balance between comfort and curiosity.

The menu is set, so the only question is: What would you like to drink? Maybe a trip through Spain and California (where Rosero spent time growing up) with a pair of wines or tea and homemade tonics? Every meal starts with fresh village bread from the wood oven. Almost everything here is cooked over fire, which Rosero calls “the most honest means of cooking.” Flanigan describes her husband as “insatiable, itinerant”; Although his cooking style is based on Colombian ingredients, it is shaped by his various curiosities. Dishes like beetroot kimchi with charred eggplant followed by charred pork caramelized in chocolate are traveling the world.

A change of scenery in the middle of the meal. Guests are ushered out, perhaps with an intermezzo cocktail in hand.mezcal Does anyone have Kalamata olives? To the second table in the lush backyard. Here the grill is in full swing and someone’s children are enjoying the theater. This open-air gap allows for a better look at the grill itself, a three-tiered rig of Rosero’s own design, and a chance to chat with the grill chef while he flips the chicken, which will soon be coming in all sorts of smoky and supple. green pistou. Eventually the party will head back indoors, where the meal will evolve into a hearty main course, like an earthy lamb braised with rosé. Then salad. And since you’re not really in a rush, not one but two desserts are just indulgent enough: sweet potato cheesecake or shiitake ice cream, maybe. No one is coming to turn the tables or leave a check. All that’s left is to savor the last bite of chocolate bark, sip a second cup of Malawian tea, and marvel at the fact that the last few hours have provided you with more welcome to the city than any guided tour could ever provide.

This wasn’t always the case with Prudencia. Before the pandemic, it catered to the fast-paced lunch crowd. When it came time to reopen in October 2020, Rosero and Flanigan decided quality of life had to come first. So they went against all conventional wisdom by raising prices, doubling salaries, and reducing capacity to a dozen or so tables. The experiment worked. While restaurants all over Bogota struggled to retain staff and customers, Prudencia’s employees remained loyal and seats remained full. His generous style of service reflects this emphasis on well-being; It feels like the staff wants to be there as much as you do.

In this reinvention, Rosero and Flanigan have built an ecosystem where those who cook and those who enjoy it can come together for a few unforgettable hours that will stay with you long after you return home. “The philosophy of life needs to be clear, and business and food come from that,” Flanigan says. “That’s what gives the restaurant its soul.”