The best chefs in Panama show their dishes at Biomuseo

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The Biodiversity Museum designed by Frank Gehry still has two years to its opening. However, the museum showroom (Calzada de Amador, after Pencas Restaurant, second street on the right) is in full swing of visitors every weekend. The next Saturday, May 26, from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., four of the best chefs in Panama will conduct a series of tastings and lectures on local food and how it can help to promote biodiversity.

The event is free and will be also aimed at children, although the organization has prepared a tour around the museum gardens for the children to go quietly while parents enjoy the explanations of some of the highlights of the chef Panama's dining scene.

From 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., Jorge Ventocilla, Peruvian biologist based in Panama, will discuss the origin and significance of many fruits absent in supermarkets, but that years ago were part of the daily diet of previous generations. Besides talking about them, the public can try.

After exposure of Ventocilla, will be the time for four major Panamanian chefs: Mario Castrellón (www.maitopanama.com), Melissa De León (www.panamagourmet.net), Elena Hernández (www.panamagastronomica.com) and Patricia Miranda Allen (Cerro Brujo Restaurant, in Volcán, Chiriquí Province), in that order.

Mario Castrellón reveal the secrets of the wood stew. Melissa de León will try to return to the roots as well as talk about innovation and sustainability in food. Elena Hernández addressed the possibility of a sustainable food in Panama, and Patricia Miranda Allen will discuss about sustainable food in the countryside and the city. The talks will be exclusively in Spanish.

Some museums like the Guggenheim Bilbao, (same as Biomuseo designed by architect Frank Gehry), are characterized by upscale restaurants on site. May the Biomuseo come to have a good restaurant too, in this case based on a sustainable cuisine.Panama City is experiencing an outbreak gastronomic landscape together with the urban development. The city works like a pressure cooker and the new restaurants add a distinctive aroma. Still it is a minority phenomenon, the national daily menu remains rice with chicken, but the revolution, though in reverse (from the upper to lower classes), is underway. Contact: (507) 314-0097.