The Spot: El Chalan, 1924 Eye St. NW, (202) 293-2765 The Cuisine: Peruvian The Go-To Dishes: ceviche mixto, cabrito norteño The Scoop: When it comes to Peruvian food in the metro area, we're often relegated to thinking that the El Pollo Rico locations are the alpha and the omega of this sadly under-appreciated cuisine. I'm [...]
Few can argue that D.C.'s food culture has improved significantly in the past decade, at all levels of dining, from street food to the most sophisticated of celebrity chef restaurants. But one area in which the District still underachieves is Peruvian ceviche. While on vacation earlier this month in Miami, I learned how wide the [...]
Javier Angeles-Beron was in South Beach when I reached him by phone yesterday evening, and he wasn't trying to shout over some thumping DJ while dodging bronzed models at an oversexed, smoked-filled nightclub. He was prepping for the opening of a new Latin-Asian restaurant in the Z Ocean Hotel, where he had just been named executive chef. [...]
Yaku to swim with the (raw) fishes We interrupt Y&H's Home Cooking Day to pass along this news: Yaku, the Latin Concept restaurant dedicated to chifa cuisine and other Peruvian specialties, will close in January and reopen as a rock 'n' roll/sushi establishment. Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld, founder of the Latin Concepts group of fashionable restaurant/lounges, tells [...]
Next week's Young & Hungry column takes a look at Peruvian chifa cuisine through the perspective of two different eateries: Yaku, the modern glass-house of a restaurant owned by Mauricio "Mr. Idea Man" Fraga-Rosenfeld of Latin Concepts, and Aroma, a strip-mall joint in Olney co-owned by Javier Angeles-Beron, Fraga-Rosenfeld's former executive chef. Their approaches are [...]
