Some years ago, when I first came to Queenstown, one of the places that immediately caught my attention was Caribe Latin Kitchen.

I was walking onto Ballarat Street when suddenly I heard something that, at the time, still sounded unusual to my ears in this town.

Latin music.

My eyes followed the sound.

Inside, I found little pieces of Latin America everywhere: colourful Mexican skulls, photographs from different parts of South and Central America, religious figures, old frames, musicians, flags, and even a Botero image watching over part of the room.

It was colourful, crowded, slightly chaotic - in a good way.

There was something familiar about it.

Last Sunday, at around 11 in the morning, I was in town when I had one of those brunch impulses. I remembered Caribe and decided to pop in.

At the counter I asked a simple question:

“What’s your top seller?”

The answer came immediately.

“The chicken burrito.”

Easy.

I ordered a large chicken burrito, medium spicy, and started looking around while I waited.

The place still had that same maximalist Latin American character I remembered. There was always another little detail to discover on the walls.

And then something happened in the kitchen.

The sound of a pressure cooker.

A few seconds later came the smell of beans and spices.

And suddenly I wasn’t really in Queenstown anymore.

I was a kid in Bogotá.

Some mornings, decades ago now, my parents would drop me at my grandmother’s house before going to work at the city council. She would look after me for the day.

At around 11:30 in the morning, there would often be that same sound coming from her kitchen.

The pressure cooker.

Then the smell.

Beans, lentils, meat, spices. Lunch getting closer.

It was a happy sound because it announced that food was coming.

The salsa music playing at Caribe took me somewhere else too.

Sunday mornings with my dad.

He would give me some cash and send me to the neighbourhood shop to buy what we needed for breakfast - or perhaps what today we would call brunch.

I would walk there in my pyjamas and come back carrying eggs, chorizo, tomatoes, onions, spring onions, milk, freshly baked bread and the weekend newspaper.

I loved doing that job because my dad would let me keep the change as my tip.

Excellent business.

Then the salsa would play, I would attempt to read the newspaper, and from the kitchen would come the smell of the huevos rancheros my dad was making.

I hadn’t thought about those mornings for a while.

And somehow a pressure cooker and some salsa on Ballarat Street had brought the whole thing back.

Then I heard someone from the counter.

“Chicken burrito!”

Queenstown again.

I took it and sat at the little bar inside.

The tortilla was packed with white rice, black beans, pulled chicken breast, salad and some sauces.

At first, I could taste garlic, cumin and coriander, along with a smoky flavour and a gentle level of spice. The cabbage still had some crunch, which helped, because a burrito needs those changes in texture when almost everything is wrapped together.

But the thing I liked most was the smokiness. The chicken also carried a grilled note, adding another layer of smokiness.

Also, it was combined with a flavour that reminded me of chipotle, lingering after each bite without taking over everything else.

And while eating it, another connection appeared.

For people who live far away from where they were born, food is often one of the things that can make home feel very far away - or suddenly very close.

I love Colombian food, but I’ve never suffered too much from not having it around me every day. I enjoy eating food from everywhere, and New Zealand has fantastic produce and very good meat.

But there is something from Colombia that I do miss.

During the working week, there are small eateries everywhere serving lunch to people who work away from home.

The menu changes each day, but the logic is usually similar.

First, soup.

Then a plate with rice, a legume - perhaps beans or lentils - some salad, a protein and, very often, potatoes or plantain somewhere in the equation.

Nothing particularly fancy.

It is simply lunch.

Filling, practical, affordable food designed to get somebody through the rest of the working day.

Looking at the burrito in my hands, I thought: this is almost the wrapped version of that idea.

Rice. Beans. Protein. Vegetables. Sauce.

Everything together, portable, substantial and easy to eat.

Back when I was working as a chef, I remember reading about the history of burritos and their relationship with practical food for people on the move.

Even the name has attracted stories.

Burrito means “little donkey” in Spanish, although exactly how the food acquired the name is uncertain. One popular legend tells of Juan Méndez, a food vendor around Ciudad Juárez during the Mexican Revolution, who supposedly transported food on a donkey and wrapped meat and beans inside large flour tortillas to keep them warm and make them easier to carry.

I don’t know whether Juan Méndez really gave the burrito its name. Food history is full of stories that become better every time somebody tells them.

But I like the story anyway.

Because there is something very human about the idea.

Someone is hungry. Someone else needs to feed them. The food needs to travel.

So you wrap it.

And perhaps that is part of what caught my attention about Caribe when I first arrived in Queenstown.

I could walk into a little Latin kitchen in the middle of a town at the bottom of New Zealand, buy a burrito, and somehow connect with stories from completely different places and times.

Maybe tourists experience something similar here every day.

Queenstown’s food scene is surprisingly substantial for a town of this size. There are kitchens carrying pieces of many different countries, and behind many of them are people who brought recipes, techniques, flavours and memories with them.

Sometimes you go into one simply because you’re hungry.

And sometimes a smell from the kitchen sends you across the Pacific.

By the time I finished the burrito, I was properly full.

The smoky flavour was still hanging around as I walked out.

I’ll probably return for an arepa next time.

Although after a large burrito, I learnt one thing:

Next time, I’m getting a drink with it. I felt like a beer or a cold Coke would be a perfect match for it.

And this little Sunday stop reminded me of something else.

There are plenty of food stories hiding around Queenstown.

I’m only starting to look for them.