In This Guide
The rain started somewhere around Circular 3 and didn't stop for three hours. Classic Laureles afternoon — the kind where the gutters run fast and every corner bar fills up with guys watching Atlético Nacional replays on muted TVs. I wasn't planning an empanada crawl. I was trying to get to a barbershop. But the first one I ducked into — a cantina with no name on its awning, just a faded green Nacional flag — had a basket of empanadas so aggressively good that I abandoned the haircut entirely.
What followed was five stops across maybe twelve blocks, all of them tied in some way to fútbol culture, all of them serving empanadas that ranged from transcendent to merely excellent. Laureles doesn't get the food-walk treatment the way El Poblado or Centro do. That's fine by the people eating here.
1. The cantina with no name on Carrera 76
I still don't know what this place is called. It's on Carrera 76 between Circular 3 and Circular 4, west side of the street, ground floor of a residential building painted the color of an old avocado. There's a counter, six plastic stools, and a deep fryer that sounds like it's been running since 1997.
The empanadas here are the yellow corn-dough style — tightly sealed, fried until the surface cracks in places. The filling is beef with potato, seasoned with enough cumin that you smell it before you taste it. They cost 2,500 pesos each. I had three. The ají comes in a squeeze bottle and has a slow heat that builds across the roof of your mouth. Ask for it — they won't put it out unless you do.
A guy next to me was eating his with his eyes locked on a 2004 Copa Libertadores match on a phone propped against a napkin holder.
Pro tip: They close when the empanadas run out, which on rainy days can be as early as 2 p.m. Get there before noon if you want a guaranteed shot.
2. Donde Pipe — the one everyone already knows
Donde Pipe sits on Calle 34 near the Primer Parque de Laureles, and it's the spot most locals will name if you ask about empanadas in the neighborhood. The walls are covered in Nacional memorabilia. Scarves, signed photos, a framed jersey from the Higuita era. It feels less like a restaurant and more like someone's personal shrine that happens to serve food.
The empanadas are good. I'll say that clearly. But they're not the best on this circuit, and I think the reputation coasts a little on atmosphere and loyalty. The dough is thicker than I like — more dumpling than crisp shell — and the filling leans heavy on potato with the meat playing backup. At 3,000 pesos each, they're fine. The real move here is the empanada de pipián if they have it, a version with a peanut-spiked filling that I've only seen twice in three visits.
Come for the energy on match days. The TV is large and the crowd is loud and nobody cares if you stay for two hours nursing an Águila.
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Expedia →3. Skip Empanadas del Estadio on game nights
I know. It's right there by the Atanasio Girardot. It's convenient. It's also a nightmare.
On match nights the line wraps around the block, the oil temperature drops because they're frying at volume, and what you get is a soggy, lukewarm empanada for 4,000 pesos — nearly double what you'd pay three blocks away. The Tuesday-through-Thursday version of this place is perfectly acceptable. But if Nacional or DIM are playing? Walk past. Keep walking. The cantinas deeper into Laureles are better and calmer and half the price.
Pro tip: If you absolutely must eat near the stadium, the arepas con queso from the cart on Carrera 70 with Calle 48 are a smarter call. The señora running it has been there for years.
4. La esquina of Circular 1 and Carrera 79 — a two-stool operation
Two stools. A plywood counter. A woman named Doña Gloria (or that's what the guy next to me called her) pulling empanadas from a blackened pot.
This was the best empanada I ate that afternoon. The shell was thin enough to shatter on the first bite, scattering crumbs across the counter. Inside: shredded chicken with a faint sweetness — she uses a sofrito with panela, I think, though she didn't confirm when I asked. She just smiled and handed me another one. 2,000 pesos. The cheapest of the circuit and the most memorable.
No fútbol décor here, but I could hear a radio broadcast of a match drifting from the apartment above.
Pro tip:She's only there mornings, roughly 7 a.m. to noon. Closed Sundays.
5. Tienda El Golazo on Calle 38
The name tells you everything. Tienda El Golazo is a corner store on Calle 38 near Carrera 82 that doubles as a bar and triples as an empanada counter on weekends. The owner — a DIM fan, which in this neighborhood takes a certain stubbornness — fries to order on Saturdays and Sundays starting around 10 a.m.
These are the big ones. Wider than my hand, stuffed with a pork-and-hogao filling that's salty and almost too much for one sitting. Almost. At 3,500 pesos they're the most expensive on my circuit but also the most substantial. He serves them on torn squares of brown paper with a cup of ají that has visible chunks of cilantro floating in it.
I made the mistake of ordering four my first time. Finished three. Stared at the fourth for ten minutes. Gave it to a kid on a bicycle.
The beer selection is just Pilsen and Club Colombia, which is all you need.
Pro tip: He sometimes runs out of pork filling by early afternoon. If you want the full experience, noon is your window.
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Expedia →6. Why Laureles and not Poblado?
People will tell you El Poblado has better restaurants. They're not wrong, exactly — it has more expensive restaurants, and more restaurants designed to look good on someone's feed. But the eating in Laureles is less performative. Nobody's plating empanadas on slate boards here.
The fútbol cantina culture matters because it sets the pace. These are places built for lingering, for arguments about whether Higuita or Óscar Córdoba was the better keeper, for slow afternoons where the rain hammers the tin awnings and nobody's in a rush. The empanadas exist inside that context. Bar food in the best sense — cheap, salty, fried, designed to be eaten with one hand while the other holds a beer or gestures wildly at a screen.
Essential tips
Laureles gets afternoon rain almost daily from April through November. Carry a light jacket or umbrella — the cantinas are more fun when you're not soaking wet walking between them.
Almost none of these spots take cards. Bring cash in small bills — trying to break a 50,000-peso note for a 2,500-peso empanada will earn you a look.
Check Nacional and DIM match schedules before you go. Cantina energy peaks on game days, but so do crowds near the stadium. Best balance: go on a day when a match is televised but played away.
The whole circuit fits within a roughly 15-block radius. Walk it. The Metro station at Estadio drops you on the eastern edge of the route.
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