Uruguayan Food: Chivito, Asado and What to Order in Montevideo

What Goes in a Chivito

A chivito is a sandwich of sliced beefsteak (churrasco) with mozzarella, ham, tomato, mustard, mayonnaise, olives, commonly bacon and a fried or hard-boiled egg, all in a bun, with French fries served alongside. It is a big plate, not a snack. The name means kid goat, a diminutive of chivo, and there is no goat in it.

Every chivitería in Montevideo has its own version, and prices are not published on official pages, so expect anything from a cheap counter sandwich to a full sit-down platter. Order it medium and eat it with a knife and fork if the stack defeats you.

How the Chivito Was Born in 1946

The reported origin is El Mejillón Bar in Punta del Este in 1946. The owner, Antonio Carbonaro, was asked by a customer from northern Argentina for a chivito, meaning kid goat meat. There was none, so Carbonaro used beef fillet instead.

The improvised sandwich stuck and spread across the country until it became the national dish. Punta del Este is a short trip from Montevideo and food lovers sometimes make the pilgrimage, though you do not need to. Any chivitería in the capital serves the same idea, and the city's official tourism site now lists chiviterías among its market stalls, including one at Mercado del Prado.

Al Pan, Al Plato or Canadiense

There are three forms to know. Chivito al pan is the standard sandwich in a bun. Chivito al plato is the platter version: the same beef and toppings served on a plate with fries, no bread.

Chivito canadiense adds panceta, the cured pork belly. To order, decide first whether you want bread or a plate, then whether you can handle the egg and bacon stack. The city tourism site calls the chivito the country's favourite fast food, which means it is quick, filling and available late.

Our pick for a first visit is the plain chivito al pan: the canadiense piles more pork on an already tall stack. See our Montevideo restaurant guide for where to sit down with one.

The Parrilla and the Asador

Many Uruguayan homes have an asador grill of iron and brick, at least two metres by one, with a chimney and a firewood box. Embers from the burning firewood are raked under the grill, and the meat cooks slowly over that wood heat rather than direct flames. The cook is also called the asador.

A typical asado takes one to two hours to do properly, so it is an event, not a quick dinner. In Montevideo the market grill stations work the same way: you walk up, order your cuts at the bar and eat them there, often with a lager at lunch. Street vendors grill on half-drum grills called medio tanque, which is where the choripán culture lives.

The Cuts to Order

A complete asado runs from chorizo and morcilla through pulpón, entraña and tira de asado, with achuras (offal) such as chinchulines, gizzards, chotos and kidneys. Tira de asado is the rib strip and the safest first order. Entraña is the thin skirt steak that cooks fast and stays tender.

Vacío, the flank, is chewier and full of flavour, and the city tourism site names it with entraña and achuras as the grill's staples. The morcilla deserves a note: the sweet version, filled with raisins, orange and chocolate, comes from the Canary Islands influence the city tourism site traces in Uruguayan cooking. A meal is often preceded by a picada of Colonia cheese, olives, longaniza, salami and peanuts, with vermouth or medio y medio as the aperitif.

Chimichurri, Salsa Criolla and Mojo

Three sauces appear at the grill. Chimichurri is parsley, garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes, paprika, oil, vinegar and salt. Salsa criolla is finely chopped raw tomato and onion with oil and salt, closer to a relish.

Mojo, made of garlic, oil, parsley, oregano, paprika and water, is brushed onto the meat during grilling rather than served after. The standard side salad is tomato, lettuce and onion dressed with oil, vinegar, garlic and oregano, and it is usually just called ensalada mixta. Papas al plomo, potatoes cooked simply, round out the plate.

None of this is hot by northern standards, which surprises visitors who expect Latin American food to burn.

Milanesa

A milanesa is a thin breaded cutlet of veal, chicken or fish, fried and served hot. Three versions matter. A la napolitana is topped with tomato sauce, ham and mozzarella, which turns it into a full meal.

A caballo comes with fried eggs on top. Al pan means it is served as a sandwich, the refuerzo the city tourism site counts among the minutas. A good milanesa should hang over the edge of the plate, and it almost always does.

It is the cheapest filling plate on most menus and a safe order in any bar kitchen. Children eat it, workers eat it and visitors should too.

Choripán and Panchos

A choripán is a grilled chorizo split lengthwise in a crusty bun, the simplest and best thing at any grill station. It is street food, so look for the carts and market stalls rather than a restaurant. Panchos are frankfurters, brought to Uruguay by German immigrants along with mustard, which is why the mustard on Uruguayan street carts is taken seriously.

Both get dressed from street dispensers, including picantina, the spicy mustard or mayonnaise that is the one genuinely hot thing in the local repertoire. A choripán at a market with a lager is a complete and cheap lunch, and it leaves room for dessert.

Empanadas

Uruguayan empanadas are usually baked, not fried, which makes them lighter than the Argentine fried style. The classic filling is carne, ground meat with boiled egg and onion, ordered either dulce (with raisins) or salada (with olives), and you should try both to find your preference. Other standard fillings are pollo and jamón y choclo, ham with sweetcorn.

Bakeries sell them by the unit all day and market stalls sell them by the bag. The street food walk includes empanadas among its five tastings, which is a good way to compare fillings with guidance. Two or three make a light lunch.

Sándwich Olímpico and Pamplona

The British accent in Uruguayan food shows up in sandwiches of soft crustless bread. The sándwich olímpico is three slices layered with ham, cheese, olives, tomato and lettuce, cut into small triangles and served cold. It appears at cafés and family lunches rather than late-night counters.

The pamplona, which the city tourism site calls a more recent addition, is rolled pork or chicken stuffed with cheese, pepper and olives, then roasted and sliced. It is a restaurant and home-oven dish, richer than it sounds, and it pairs well with a simple salad. Both show how many influences, British, Spanish and Italian, sit inside one national kitchen.

Ñoquis on the 29th

On the 29th of every month, Uruguayans eat ñoquis. The custom was brought by Veneto immigrants and is said to honour Saint Pantaleo. The city tourism site lists it among the Italian legacies in local cooking.

Restaurants run ñoquis specials on the day and families make them at home, often with tuco sauce, the local meat tomato sauce. The related sauce to know is salsa Caruso, a creamy sauce that usually accompanies capeletis. Turn up at a pasta house on the 29th and you will find the tradition working.

It is one of the easiest local customs for a visitor to join, because it needs no ticket and no language skill, only an appetite.

Pizza, Fainá and Pizza a Caballo

Uruguayan pizza comes in its own styles: pizza rellena (stuffed), pizza por metro (sold by the metre, good for groups) and pizza a la parrilla, baked on the grill, which gives a smokier base. With pizza comes fainá, a thin chickpea-flour bake that arrives alongside, and the local move is to order pizza a caballo, with the fainá served on top of the slice. Fugazza, descended from focaccia, is the onion-topped cousin.

The other Italian legacy the city tourism site names is pascualina, a spinach and egg pie sold in bakeries, useful when you want a vegetarian plate in a beef-first country. In Ciudad Vieja, the old bar Santa Catalina turns into a wood-oven pizzeria at night, listed by the city tourism site.

Pot Cooking: Puchero, Lentils and Mondongo

The city tourism site describes a cocina de olla, pot cooking inherited from Spain and Italy, that still fills winter menus. The list runs to lentil stews, matambre a la leche, tongue in vinaigrette, beans and mondongo, the tripe stew that divides rooms. Puchero is the boiled dinner that adds maize, squash and sweet potato to the pot, giving the dish a distinctly local colour.

These plates appear in traditional bar kitchens and family restaurants rather than market stalls, and they are weekday food, cheap and slow. If you visit in winter, when the city tourism site gives average temperatures between 6°C and 14°C, a puchero or lentil stew is the meal the weather asks for.

Dulce de Leche Everywhere

Dulce de leche, a product of the Río de la Plata, is the population's favourite sweet according to the city tourism site. It turns up in ice cream, in panqueques de dulce de leche (crêpes folded around the spread), in cakes and in alfajores, the sandwich biscuits sold in every kiosk and bakery. Buy a box of alfajores as your souvenir instead of anything from a gift shop.

In an ice cream shop (heladería), dulce de leche is the flavour to try first. One caution: portions are generous and everything is rich, so pace your desserts across the trip rather than cramming them into one afternoon.

Chajá

The chajá is Uruguay's best-known cake: meringue, sponge cake, double cream and peach or strawberry, with dulce de leche and chocolate versions. Orlando Castellano, owner of the Confitería Las Familias in Paysandú, fixed the recipe on 27 April 1927, standardising an older meringue-and-peach cake that families on both banks of the Río Uruguay baked for weddings and birthdays. It takes its name from the chajá, the large grey bird of the region's wetlands, and in 2018 the Tourism Ministry let it carry the Uruguay Natural country brand.

In Montevideo you meet it by the slice in pastry shops and on dessert menus. Order one to share after a light meal, since the cream and meringue make it heavier than it looks.

Breakfast: Bizcochos, Medialunas and Tortas Fritas

Breakfast in Uruguay is small and sweet, a pastry with coffee or mate rather than a cooked plate. Medialunas, the local croissants, are the most popular and come in butter and lard versions. Bizcochos are pastries with Germanic roots, sold by weight in bakeries, and they go with mate.

Tortas fritas are leavened fried rounds with a hole in the middle, sugared, fried in beef fat and eaten with mate. Hotel breakfasts will give you the international spread, so for the real thing walk to a panadería in the morning, point at what looks fresh and eat it standing up. So, what do Uruguayans eat for breakfast?

Medialunas, bizcochos and tortas fritas, with mate or coffee.

Mate

Mate is the national drink, drunk across all social classes, and people commonly walk the streets with gourd and thermos in hand. Uruguay has the highest per-capita yerba consumption in the world at about 8 kg per person per year. It is drunk hot and bitter from a gourd through a metal straw, water carried in a thermos, usually between 70 and 85 degrees and never boiling.

In a sharing round one server refills and passes the gourd in turn, and saying gracias when you hand it back means you are finished. Learn the etiquette before accepting. See how mate works in Uruguay for the full ritual.

Tannat and the Wineries

Tannat is Uruguay's distinctive, though not exclusive, grape, and the wine industry reconverted about 20 years ago around quality rather than volume, according to the city tourism site. You can taste it without leaving the city. The Bodega Santa Rosa tour and tasting costs $25.70 and includes a welcome drink, four wines and a table of homemade breads, cold cuts and cheeses, with a visit to what the winery calls the largest active underground cava on the continent. The Pizzorno winery lunch costs $115 and pairs a four-wine tasting with a 3-step lunch, for groups of up to 14 with hotel pickup (some options charge the tasting and lunch separately, so check the option). The VAT cut on registered winery tastings applies to foreign cards too.

Read more in our Uruguay wine guide.

Medio y Medio and Grappamiel

Medio y medio, the mix of sweet sparkling wine and dry white, was created at the Roldós bar in the Mercado del Puerto in the late 19th century and is still made and sold under the Roldós trademark. It is the classic aperitif before a parrillada, so order a bottle at the grill counters where it was invented. Grappamiel is the other local drink to know: grappa with honey and water, 20 to 25% alcohol, with a protected geographical indication in EU agreements.

It is served in bars and popular in winter, which suits the city's cooler months. Also on the typical list are caña and uvita, fortified wine with caña, the old-fashioned before-lunch pour.

Mercado del Puerto

Mercado del Puerto is the 1868 iron hall by the old port, its structure made in Liverpool, converted into a restaurant hall from the 1970s and now focused on asado over open-fire parrillas. Grill counters serve parrillada, with fish, seafood, empanadas and craft beer also on offer. It is the single easiest place for a first-time visitor to eat Uruguayan food well, and it sits at the end of the Ciudad Vieja peninsula where cruise passengers and ferry arrivals already are.

Go at lunch, when the grills are lit and the hall is at its fullest. See our Mercado del Puerto guide, or take the half-day city tour that ends with lunch there, one of the Montevideo tours that fold a meal into the sightseeing.

Mercado Agrícola de Montevideo

The Mercado Agrícola de Montevideo, on José L. Terra 2220 in Goes, opened in 1913 as a wholesale produce market and reopened restored in 2013. It holds about 100 stalls plus a food court with typical Uruguayan dishes and crafts. Entry is free, all ages are welcome, there are four step-free entrances with ramps, accessible toilets and a vegan menu available, which makes it the most flexible food stop in the city.

It is the place to see ordinary Montevideans shopping and eating rather than a tourist performance. The cruise passengers' small-group tour stops here with about 30 minutes of free time, enough for a craft beer or coffee.

The Newer Food Halls

A newer generation of food halls spreads the same idea across the city. Mercado Ferrando, in an old 2,000 square metre furniture factory, holds about 18 food projects. Mercado Williman in Punta Carretas covers the trinity of grill, chivitos and pizzas.

Mercado del Prado includes a chivitería, so it counts as a serious chivito address. In Carrasco, the wealthy seaside suburb to the east, there are two: Obra Mercado Gastronómico and Mercado Arocena. All are listed by the city tourism site with full addresses.

Pick the one nearest your hotel rather than crossing the city, since each delivers the same basics. More sit-down options are in our Montevideo restaurant guide.

The Card Discount and the Tip

Paying by card or e-money takes 9 percentage points off VAT at restaurants, bars and cafés until 30 April 2027 (Decreto 235/026). The discount applies to final consumers who pay with foreign-issued cards or e-money, or with electronic transfers from abroad, and it is taken off at payment, so you do nothing except use the right card. Small providers on the IVA Mínimo scheme give a 7.38% discount on the total instead.

The cut also covers hotel food service outside the room price, catering, car rental without driver and guided tastings at registered wineries. Tips are not obligatory but well regarded, and 10% is the usual amount. Carry both a foreign card and some cash, since market stalls vary.

See Uruguayan money and our Montevideo cost of living page for what meals cost day to day.