One of my 2 favorite restaurants in Bogota, Colombia is Osk Peru a similar fusion cusine. If this place is only half as good as Osk Peru it will still be a must visit my next trip to NYC.
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Pete Wells shouldn't make the assumption that you can't find creative nikkei food in Lima because indeed, there're so many extraordinary restaurants there that offer similar dishes to Llama San. I'm glad that Peruvian fusion cuisine is getting more exposure but it shouldn't be presented as something merely created by the chefs but something that has cultural origins in Peru's cultural diversity. I was born and raised in Lima and all these nikkei dishes sound like things I had back home.
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I'm surprised Pete Wells doesn't know this, but nasturtium leaves are edible, with a slightly peppery taste. We used to put them in sandwiches, as one might with watercress.
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@SParker I'm sure he knows that. The best interpretation in context is that he didn't enjoy them or believe they enhanced the dish.
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Nasturtiums are one of the classic companion plants that all the books say to grow in the garden. I can't say that I'd recognize the leaves alone in a restaurant, but I've seen them looking pinhole gunshot while used as a trap for flea beetles surrounding members of the mustard family — only to recover in bloom later.
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Stop raving... it's ok. Way overpriced and similar meal in more agreeable setting in Lima would set you back half as much... Enjoy if curious. Good food, no doubt... overpriced no doubt.
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@JL Thank you! This place does not deserve the raves it's getting, something is fishy here and it ain't the ceviche!
@JL
Agree. It was okay.. Too many ideas and executions are not great. It has potential but not 3 stars or even 2...
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Perhaps take a moment to wonder why it would set you back ‘half as much’; this is NYC and restaurant profit margins are razor thin. If it costs double, I promise you the restaurant isn’t saying any of it. Good day
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"Family style" is a big turnoff for me.
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Uh? Just because it says: family style, you do not have to share. Just move the dish towards you, give everybody a clear " This is mine" look and star eating.
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What a great review! I'm not mush of a cook, but I envy this restaurant this review.
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Maybe not the best place to drop a suggestion, but I think many readers could make good use of reviews highlighting up and comers abroad. Apply NY level criticism to London or Mexico City.
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@Walsh If you are looking for superb coverage of restaurants in London and Great Britain, I highly recommend Jay Rayner of The Observer (The Guardian's Sunday sibling). He shares many of Pete Wells' best qualities as a critic, and his reviews are always a highlight of my Sunday, just as Pete Wells' are a highlight of my Wednesday.
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@academia-nut
Except that Mr. Wells is a much finer writer, and doesn't feel the need to bludgeon you with adjectives, and drown you in catchy phrases. I support the Guardian, and I've read Rayner on and off for years. If you're looking for a fun read, and can stand the ego and flamboyant style, he can fill the slot, but his actual knowledge is parked in the shadow beneath his love of himself. The resources of the Guardian seem to allow him only a single meal per restaurant, so that, for me, is a problem. And a critic who can say, as Rayner did a while back, that the meal at his chosen restaurant was not copious, so he finished off the night at Burger King, is not a critic that I need to take seriously.
Finally, a shout out to the extraordinary photography of the Times, which complement the work of Mr. Wells in both sophistication and elegance. The Guardian's reviews show exactly how food photography should not be done.
Mr Wells, it's been said that no one has ever built a statue for a critic, so a few words from a fan will have to do.
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@Sera
Total agreement on Rayner, and exquisitely argued, if I may say. You have been absent lately, and we, the commentariat, have missed you.
This may the first post to compliment the photography, and, to my own shame, it is way overdue. We click on the slide show without thinking of the talent, effort and production skills of the photography staff (and, to be fair, the restaurants) that go into making such a consistently great accompaniment to Pete's prose. Bravo all.
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It kills me that wonderful reviews like this one won’t gain 1/100th of the coverage of ‘bad’ reviews (eg Peter Luger’s, Guy Fieri’s joint in Times Square), despite seeming to offer pretty delicious, innovative, and imaginative food by passionate chefs, which (one would have thought) is exactly the kind of restaurant and risk-taking we should be encouraging and applauding.
Hopefully one day readers will lose their appetite for ‘bad’ news and criticism and will start to reward the good as well.
To Pete Wells: well-written as always. Keep up the good work.
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@Houston Houston
To be fair, the Fieri review was like a big home run hit off a terrible pitch. Fun to read, and widely celebrated. But of no great consequence, especially to those of us who have followed Pete since Cooking With Dexter, his occasional column in the Times Magazine.
The Peter Luger review, on the other hand, was a cultural moment. It had the gravitas, and the critical skills, that shook the industry. It was, in its own way, the equivalent of Pete's review of Per Se.
Had the owners of Peter Luger had any historical perspective, the review might have elicited the same, contrite, response as Thomas Keller had to the Per Se critique. Instead, they were hubristic and bumptious, and caught the flak. Deservedly so.
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Another restaurant with these roots exists in North Palm Beach. We look forward to our meals at Ceviche Arigato.
I suggest that if you have the opportunity to order any of their superb ceviches, that you make every effort to see what they have created.
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We seem to have had one of the few truly bad dining experiences at Llama San. We sat at the bar.. the server tried to warn us away from a dish unless we could handle the spice. When it came, we wondered where the spice had wandered off to? The tofu dish that keeps getting raves was bland and boring (though beautiful, to be fair). And the katsu dish I was most looking forward to simply never came. After waiting 30+ minutes for the dish, our server assured us it would be there soon. 20+ minutes later, it still hadn't arrived and it was clear that the kitchen just forgot about it (the staff apologized profusely, but we'd lost our appetite at that point). The tuna ceviche we had was spectacular, it's too bad the rest of the meal didn't follow suit.
I do find it curious how much press this place is getting. Getting a NYT review after only being open for 2 months also seems hasty. This restaurant group certainly knows how to run a press junket and must have some deep connections. Food reviewers can't seem to shut up about it.... weird.
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@btcarelli New York City
"Food reviewers can't seem to shut up about it.... weird".
Perhaps not so weird. Who knows, the opinions of some may be tainted by free meals and attentive service. Present author(s) excluded, of course.
@Tuvw Xyz This really can only be a symptom a few things:
1.) These restaurants have the right connections with the press, so they are able to work their connections to get said press
2.) They are paying for it
3.) NYC food reviewers just follow each other around in an echo chamber. Each invariably lands on the same handful of restaurants in a given month.
Either way, it stinks. Next up on the circuit: Cafe Panna (Danny Meyer's daughter's place) which is getting an exorbitant amount of press. They don't even make the ice cream from scratch (it's imported from Atlanta). A recent review listed this as a positive because it keeps the ice cream consistent and "frees herself from the rigors and anxieties of pasteurizing on-site". Gross.
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Unfortunately, the slides and the text are, as usual, blocked on my tablet (WiFi).
But my general comment is that the amalgamation of the Japanese and Peruvian cuisines is not more than a consequence of peoples' migrations or, in the present case, Japanese immigration to Peru. I do not know whether in Japanese-Peruvian traditional restaurants the guests use chopsticks and a knife hidden in the outer rib of the folding fan, "tessen", carried by all fashion-conscious samurais or their descendants.
May the amalgamated cuisines live long and prosper!
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@Tuvw Xyz Might I suggest you invest in an NYT online subscription. It's not that expensive, especially given your interest in the NYC food world, and it would solve your issues with viewing articles
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@Tuvw Xyz
"But my general comment is that the amalgamation of the Japanese and Peruvian cuisines is not more than a consequence of peoples' migrations or, in the present case, Japanese immigration to Peru."
What else would it be then? Mr. Wells describes Nikkei cuisine as "the hybrid style forged by Japanese cooks living in Peru" in the first paragraph. Your "observation" doesn't seem to add anything substantive to this definition.
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I have a digital subscription and I have the same problem with captions covering up much of the photos. Also the Search function is an absolute joke.
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