Plan a Santiago day around lunch, and the rest of the eating falls into place. Chile's Ministry of Health counts up to seven possible eating moments in a day: breakfast, lunch, once, dinner, and three snacks called colaciones. The survey behind that count found that most people skip at least one of them. The one visitors do not expect is once, a word that is also the Spanish number eleven and names a meal eaten in the afternoon or evening.
What is once in Chile?
The dictionaries trace the drift. The Real Academia's general Spanish entry defines "tomar las once" as having a light refreshment between eleven and twelve in the morning, "or at different hours of the afternoon, depending on the country". The Association of Spanish Language Academies' Diccionario de americanismos gives the Chilean senses more exactly:
- a meal "served mid-afternoon";
- in the plural, a refreshment taken in the afternoon, a use also recorded in the Cauca region of Colombia;
- "once comida": "the last meal of the day, not necessarily dinner".
That last sense matters most for visitors. An invitation "a tomar once" at a Chilean home may be the evening meal itself, not a snack before one. What goes on the table varies by household, and the dictionaries only call it a light meal or refreshment, so do not expect a set menu.
You will also hear a story that the name comes from workers' code for aguardiente, whose Spanish spelling has eleven letters. None of the dictionary or government sources we read gives an origin for the word, so treat that as a popular story rather than established history.
How do Chileans divide the day's meals?
The best national picture comes from the Encuesta Nacional de Consumo Alimentario (ENCA). The University of Chile's medicine and economics faculties ran it for the Ministry of Health between November 2010 and January 2011, with 4,920 completed surveys. People were asked which meals they had eaten the previous day.
| Meal | Share who reported it | What the survey adds |
|---|---|---|
| Almuerzo (lunch) | 96% | "The most observed meal" |
| Desayuno (breakfast) | 90% | More common among women |
| Once | 80% | More common among women |
| Cena (dinner) | 27% | 31% among men, 34% in the high socioeconomic group |
A little arithmetic shows how often the two evening meals overlap. If 80% had once and 27% had dinner, the two groups add up to 107%, so at least 7% of people must have had both. Once, not dinner, was the usual evening meal. The figures are from 2010–11, and the ministry had not published a newer national survey of meal occasions among the pages we read.
Which Chilean breads should you know?
Two everyday loaves have Chilean senses recorded in the Academies' dictionary of Americanisms. The Diccionario de americanismos defines the marraqueta as a small, wide bread "with two transverse slits", and the hallulla as a round bread of "relatively thin" dough made with fat (manteca). In the ENCA survey, bread was the most consumed food in its group of cereals, potatoes and legumes.
Neither dictionary entry ties these breads to once, and no source we read describes a standard once menu. If you want to assemble your own from a neighbourhood bakery, though, these are the two names to know, since the Academies record both with a Chilean meaning.
What is a completo?
The Diccionario de americanismos defines the Chilean completo as a long, soft-crust bun split along one side, holding a sausage "with chopped tomato, sauerkraut, mayonnaise and other additional ingredients". The same word works as an adjective, so a sandwich or pizza "completo" comes with those toppings too.
According to Chile Travel, the national tourism site, the completo arrived in the 1920s through Eduardo Bahamondes, a merchant who ran a quick-lunch counter in the Portal Fernández Concha on Santiago's Plaza de Armas. He adapted the American hot dog with local toppings. Chile Travel's list of variants includes:
- Italiano: sausage with avocado, tomato and mayonnaise;
- As: meat in place of the sausage;
- Chacarero: green beans and green chilli join tomato and mayonnaise.
Chile Travel also lists regional versions named for cities, such as the temucano and the magallánico. For a casual sit-down place to eat one, look for a fuente de soda, which the Academies define as an establishment serving fast food, drinks and ice cream. The term is also used in Peru and Venezuela.
Planning your own meals in Santiago
Treat lunch as your main cooked meal. It is the meal almost everyone eats. If you are staying with a family or in a small guesthouse, ask whether they serve once or dinner and at what time, since the survey shows many people have only one of the two. If an evening invitation says once, arrive hungry: it may be the last meal you are offered that day.
For an informal evening meal outside, a fuente de soda serving completos is an alternative to a sit-down restaurant. No national rule sets opening hours for either, so check the posted hours on the day.