Juan Manuel Barrientos opened El Cielo in Medellin in 2007 and has since taken it to Bogota, Miami and Washington. The format is a long tasting menu with a deliberate theatrical streak — courses you eat with your hands, a chocolate hand-wash between dishes — built on Colombian ingredients and technique rather than imported luxury. It is expensive by local standards and books out well ahead. Whether the theatre lands is a matter of taste; its influence on how Colombian cooking is presented is not in dispute.