Jorge Gacharna, a Bogotá native who learned to cook from his father, and his wife Jeannette left jobs as a butcher and a banker to open their own restaurant, and the family now runs this Brasa Roja, the original on Montrose and El Llano on Elston. The method is the draw: chickens are deeply marinated, roasted slowly on a custom rotisserie and finished directly over the charcoal so the skin crisps, a process ABC7's Steve Dolinsky singled out on Hungry Hound, and the family says it once sold 270 chickens on a single Saturday. Order a whole or half bird, or go for the Matrimonio, char-broiled chicken alongside a New York strip.
The rest of the menu is a full Colombian table: churrasco and rib-eye bistec encebollado, char-broiled beef ribs, sobrebarriga brisket in creole sauce, fried red snapper and catfish, half a rotisserie rabbit and the bandeja paisa piled with rice, beans, sausage, chicharron, egg, plantain, avocado, arepa and steak. Sancocho de gallina, beef empanadas, arepa con queso and fresh lulo, mora, maracuya and mango juices round it out. It's open every day from 9am to 9pm, and you can call ahead for pickup.
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