Can you eat well in Cartagena without eating meat?
Yes, and more easily than the guidebooks let on. The coast's reputation is fried fish, coconut rice and patacones, and that reputation is earned, but plantain, yuca, avocado, mango, lentils and a serious amount of good produce are all part of the same cooking. The problem is rarely that there's nothing to eat. It's that nobody asks you, so you end up with the salad and a plate of chips.
Out here on Tierra Bomba, 25 minutes by boat from the city, we ask. A lot of us at Blue Apple have been vegetarian or vegan at some point, which is why we're not casual about it: we keep a decent offering for non-meat eaters rather than one sad pasta dish, and lactose and gluten intolerance are routine for our kitchen, not a crisis.
What our kitchen actually does
Our food is built around what's grown and caught near here rather than around an imported menu. We're conscientious about what we buy and what you put in your body. Any meat we do serve is sustainably raised and ethically treated, including how far the animal travelled, which is a standard that quietly rules a lot of suppliers out.
Pedro Mosqueda is our executive chef. The kitchen was built by Silvestre Saiz Cortazar, born and trained in Ibiza and raised in the kitchens of Bogota, and that combination of Mediterranean technique with Caribbean produce is still what the menu sounds like. In practice, for a vegetarian eater, that means the vegetables get the good treatment rather than the leftover one.
We won't print a fixed vegan menu here, because it moves with what the islands and the coastal farms have that week and we'd rather it did. Ask when you book and we'll tell you what's on.
Tell us before you get on the boat
This is the one piece of advice that actually changes your day. We're on an island. There is no bridge, no road in, and no shop around the corner if we've run out of something. Send us a WhatsApp with your dietary requirements when you reserve, not when you sit down.
Boats leave Muelle de la Bodeguita at 10am, 11:30am and 5pm, and come back from us at 4pm and 5:30pm. The crossing is about 25 minutes. Take the 10am if lunch matters to you.
What it costs
A day pass with boat transfers both ways is $40, a sun lounger is $5 to $30 depending on which you want, and you pay for whatever you order. There's no all-inclusive and no buffet, which we think is a feature: nobody makes a good vegan plate at scale on a hot tray.
If you're a group of ten or more, we run a set lunch menu at $45 per person, and that's the moment to tell us your numbers, because a set menu with three vegans in the party is a different menu. Staying the night, full board with food and soft drinks is $90 per person per night.
In the city, and in the village
Cartagena's old town and Getsemaní have got noticeably better at this. Pezetarian is the name that comes up most often in the city's vegan listings, an Asian-Caribbean place doing vegetarian and vegan sushi, which is a useful thing to know if you've had a week of grilled everything. We won't pretend to keep a current list of the rest: menus and opening hours in the old town change faster than any hotel blog can track, so check before you walk over.
Bocachica, the village on our island, is a different proposition. It has enormous soul and no restaurant scene to speak of. Go for the fort and the streets, eat with us.
The honest caveats
We're not a vegan restaurant. We're a beach club and an eleven-room hotel with a kitchen that takes non-meat cooking seriously, and there's a difference. If you want an entirely plant-based menu with twelve options, the city will serve you better than we will. If you want to spend a day in the sea and eat properly at the end of it without negotiating, tell us in advance and we've got you.
See you on the boat.