Zona G: a Food District

The letter “G” in the name of these blocks is interpreted as “gourmet” or “gastronomic.” Restaurateurs occupied ordinary houses between the Fourth and Seventh Carreras, turning rooms into dining rooms and yards into kitchens and terraces. In the early two thousands, this restaurant district was only beginning to take shape.

At that time, the brothers Jorge and Mark Rausch returned to Bogotá. Jorge was a chef trained in French cuisine in England; Mark was responsible for bread and desserts. Both had earned money in other people’s kitchens abroad and wanted to open their own fine-dining restaurant. Their grandmother provided some of the money, but the family savings were not enough even for the down payment on premises in the already fashionable restaurant districts—Zona T and near 93 Park.

On Calle 69A, near Fifth Carrera, the brothers found a house owned by a financial company. Its owners agreed to an unusual arrangement: they themselves lent the Rausches money so that the brothers could buy the house from them. This allowed the grandmother’s money to be spent on a stove, refrigerators, tableware, and remodeling the rooms. The brothers entered the venture in debt; they could not afford a full market study and asked friends whether people from Bogotá would go to such a restaurant.

In the fall of two thousand three, Criterion opened here. Jorge and Mark had planned to call their cuisine author’s cuisine, but abandoned those words. Nearby establishments already served deliberately extravagant dishes under that name—for example, they supplemented ajiaco, a Colombian potato soup with chicken, with caviar. The Rausches feared that diners would decide they were once again about to be surprised by a combination for the sake of surprise itself. Their sign promised modern French cuisine, and in the dining room they introduced pre-arranged dishes, in which the chef, rather than the guest, chose the side dish and sauce.

Ten people came on the first day. Within a few days, the tables were already filling up. The brothers could not hire a ready-made team for that kind of service: there were almost no cooks and waiters at the required level in the city, so they trained them themselves. Some of those trainees later worked for years in the Rausches’ businesses.

Criterion gave the brothers their own restaurant chain, books, and television programs. In two thousand six, they introduced a daily tasting menu—a sequence of small dishes that then seemed unfamiliar to people from Bogotá. At first, roughly every tenth diner chose it; later, every second diner did. In the middle of the following decade, Criterion entered the top twenty restaurants in Latin America. By two thousand sixteen, three establishments from the same list were located within several blocks of Zona G.

In two thousand twenty-four, the brothers closed Criterion after two decades of work. The house on Calle 69A now contains the Italian restaurant Bistecca e Vino. In the description of its address, the former owner is listed in parentheses: “former Criterion.”