🇨🇱 Chile · Central Chile and Santiago
A little over an hour from Santiago, Pomaire is one of those places where time seems to run differently. This small country village in the commune of Melipilla is the capital of Chilean pottery: on its dirt streets, among adobe houses, generations of artisans have shaped greda (clay) by hand into the pans, dishes, jugs, pots and figures that fill kitchens and tables across Chile.
But Pomaire is not only ceramics. It's also a cult food destination: people come here to eat the famous giant empanadas — enormous, filled with pino (beef, onion, egg and olive) — and the dishes of criollo country cooking served, naturally, in clay ware that brings out the flavor. Touring the workshops, watching the artisans work the earth, buying a pan for your pastel de choclo and finishing with a country lunch is the perfect plan.
This guide covers Pomaire with a practical, warm eye: how to get there from Santiago, what to see and buy on its artisan streets, where to eat the best giant empanada, what the clay trade involves and what to bear in mind to make the most of a visit. A short, cheap and deeply Chilean escape, ideal for a weekend.
Pomaire is a village with a pottery tradition whose roots reach back into pre-Hispanic times. The area was inhabited by Indigenous peoples of central Chile, and the name 'Pomaire' is associated with Indigenous words from the region. During the colonial era, Pomaire was a 'pueblo de indios', one of the settlements where the Spanish Crown regrouped the Indigenous population; the tradition of working greda, which already existed among the Indigenous peoples, endured and was passed down from one generation to the next. The great wealth of the place is its earth: the excellent-quality clay deposits in the surrounding hills are the raw material that has sustained the trade for centuries. Over time Pomaire specialized in utilitarian ceramics — pans, dishes, pots, jugs — which spread across the country and became an essential part of traditional Chilean cooking. Its closeness to Santiago and the fame of its craft and its food turned the village, especially from the mid-20th century, into a destination much loved by santiaguinos. Today Pomaire's pottery is recognized as part of Chile's cultural heritage, and the village lives largely off the tourism drawn by its clay and its giant empanadas. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The political and economic heart of Chile: Santiago, founded in 1541 at the foot of the Andes, with the La Moneda palace and the canalised Mapocho River; pottery villages such as Pomaire; the mountain country of the Cajón del Maipo; and the world-class ski resorts of the Tres Valles.
Read the history of Santiago Metropolitan Region →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Pomaire's history reaches back to well before the Spanish arrived. The area of today's village, in the Melipilla valley, was part of the territory inhabited by Indigenous peoples of central Chile, who lived by farming, gathering and making objects from the local clay. That tradition of working greda — which in time would become Pomaire's hallmark — has its roots in that pre-Hispanic world.
The name 'Pomaire' itself is associated with words from Indigenous languages of central Chile. As with many place names of Indigenous origin, there are differing readings of its precise meaning, so they are best treated with caution. What is clear is that the name, like the potter's trade, is an inheritance from the valley's ancient inhabitants.
The region was also under the influence of the Inca empire before the Spanish conquest, folded into the networks of control the Incas extended south across the continent. On that base of Indigenous settlement and pottery tradition, in colonial times, the Pomaire we know would be built.
During the colonial period Pomaire took shape as one of the so-called 'pueblos de indios', the settlements in which the Spanish Crown regrouped and administered the Indigenous population, keeping it to some degree apart from Spanish lands and estates. That arrangement was meant to make control, evangelization and tribute collection easier, and it left behind a settlement structure that in many cases has lasted to this day.
In that context, the community of Pomaire kept up and developed its pottery tradition. Working the clay, inherited from pre-Hispanic times, became a key economic activity for the village's inhabitants, who produced utilitarian earthenware — pots, dishes, jugs — for domestic use and for trade with other parts of the central valley. The abundance and quality of the clay in the surrounding land was always the great resource of the place.
And so, while much of central Chile was being transformed by the haciendas and the colonial economy, Pomaire held on to an identity of its own, tied to the land, to the rural community and, above all, to the craft of shaping earth, passed from parents to children as a shared body of knowledge.
The soul of Pomaire is greda, the Chilean word for the clay from which ceramics are shaped. The excellent-quality clay deposits around the village have been, for centuries, the raw material sustaining the trade. Artisans dig out the greda, prepare it, shape it by hand or on the wheel, leave it to dry and fire it in kilns to produce hard-wearing pieces.
What's remarkable about Pomaire is that this tradition didn't end up in a museum case: it stayed alive and was passed down from one generation to the next. Whole families work in pottery, and the masters teach the trade to their children from an early age. Over time the village specialized above all in utilitarian ceramics — pans, dishes, pots, jugs — which spread across Chile and became part of criollo cooking: the 'paila de greda' and the earthenware dish are everyday objects in many Chilean homes.
Alongside the utilitarian, Pomaire also makes decorative pieces and figures, among them the celebrated three-legged 'chanchito de la suerte', a popular charm given as a gift to attract good fortune. That combination of usefulness, tradition and symbolism has made Pomaire's pottery a recognized part of Chile's cultural heritage.
Through the 20th century, and especially from mid-century onwards, Pomaire became a destination much loved by the people of Santiago. Several factors combined: its closeness to the capital (a little over an hour's drive), the growing fame of its clay craftwork and the appeal of its country cooking, with the giant empanada as its great culinary emblem.
Better roads and a rise in domestic tourism turned a visit to Pomaire into a classic weekend outing: tour the workshops, buy ceramics and sit down to a hearty criollo lunch. The village adapted part of its life to that trade, with streets full of craft shops and traditional restaurants, without entirely losing its rural character.
Today tourism is one of Pomaire's main sources of income, and two worlds coexist there: that of the pottery community keeping a centuries-old tradition alive, and that of a popular destination receiving thousands of visitors. The challenge for the village is preserving the authenticity of its craft and its identity against the pressure of mass tourism, keeping clay and criollo cooking as its defining marks.
If clay is Pomaire's craft identity, cooking is its culinary one, and the two are deeply intertwined: the traditional dishes are served, by custom, in clay ware. The village's great culinary emblem is the giant empanada, an outsized version of the classic Chilean empanada de pino (chopped beef, onion, egg, olive and sometimes raisins), which can weigh more than a kilo and has become an attraction in its own right.
The origin of that tradition is tied to the village's tourist development: Pomaire's country restaurants turned the abundance and home-style character of Chilean cooking into a draw, and the giant empanada became a signature that many visitors come specifically to try. Around it comes the whole criollo table: pastel de choclo, cazuela, costillar, arrollado, pernil and traditional desserts.
That union of clay and food sums up the spirit of Pomaire: a village where hand-shaped earth and the country cooking of central Chile go hand in hand. Eating a traditional dish served in a clay pan made in the very same village is perhaps the best way to understand why Pomaire holds such a special place in Chilean hearts.