Chicago’s Best Kept Secret
The subtitle, painted on the window and typed onto the menus below the name Taste of Peru, reads “Best Kept Secret in Chicago.” Indeed, this unassuming little hole-in-the-wall is tucked into a small strip mall set off from the street. And from the looks of the place, an outside observer would never guess that the food would be excellent. But excellent it is.
Empanada Boy and I arrived at Taste of Peru at around 8:30 pm on a Saturday night with no reservation. There was no way a restaurant like that would be full after the normal Midwestern dinner hour, I told myself. Of course, every single table was packed with people, including two parties of about eight people each. EB and I resigned ourselves to waiting and exchanged humorous remarks with the buoyant owner Cesar Izquierdo, who would later prove to be our primary source of dinner entertainment and the generous donor of the delicious ceviche made with chunks of the white Corvina fish, onions and vinegar (pictured above).
This gave us plenty of time to peruse what the other diners, including a number of Peruvians, were eating. When we sat down, we ordered a plate of the paella, which we had seen on nearly every table in the restaurant. We also ordered a plate of slow-cooked lamb, with vegetables and sides of rice and beans. While we waited, we dipped pieces of airy, white pieces of very South American bread into a creamy habañero sauce.
Unlike Spanish-style paella, the Peruvian version is made with only seafood. Ours came with a delicious blend of clams, mussels, crab, shrimp, squid and tiny scallops. The rice may not have seen much saffron, but it certainly had the color and the deep, rich flavor that comes from being slowly cooked in broth. As if that huge plate of food weren’t enough, a massive portion of lamb arrived falling tenderly off the bone after being braised in wine. The menu said the sauce that coated it was made with beer and pumpkin, in addition to the apparent peppers and onions.
We ate until we could eat no more, chatting intermittently with the friendly people sitting next to us and with the gregarious Mr. Izquierdo. He chided us for having brought German beer and insisted on having all of us sample his Concord grape Peruvian wine and his Peruvian beer. Despite our fullness, he also insisted we try his desserts. Empanada Boy and I managed to eat quite a bit of the dense smoky wedge of flan and the delicious alfajor, a powdered sugar coated cookie filled with dulce de leche.
If it’s not clear already, EB and I loved this restaurant. We are definitely coming back soon. It looks like Taste of Peru is “Chicago’s Best Kept Secret” no longer.
Taste of Peru
6545 N. Clark St.
Chicago, IL 60626
773.381.4540
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Daddy Salmon said,
May 7, 2007 @ 11:02 pm
Dear ML and EB,
I visited Peru for two weeks and never had elegant food like you had in Chicago. Based upon my experience, “Chifa” or Chinese food was the height of elegance for Lima. I wish that I was there to join your for this dinner.
Daddy Salmon
Mango Lassie said,
May 8, 2007 @ 12:58 pm
Thanks for the comment, Daddy Salmon. I knew from the moment we walked into this restaurant that it was your kind of place.
Your comments about the food in Lima are interesting because that’s where the owner of the restaurant is from. I don’t think many Peruvians consider the food we had to be as elegant as it seems to us. It may be that your Peruvian friends or hosts consider Chinese food to be more elegant because it’s exotic. The food at Taste of Peru might be closer to what they’re eating at home. It’s also possible that your colleages didn’t take you to the truly fancy places in Lima. There probably aren’t many, but there have to be a few in every major city. I would imagine those might be something like Andina, which is one of Portland’s best restaurants.
On another note, I forgot to mention that there was also live music at the restaurant, including a guitarist and the traditional wooden pipes. It’s a lot to pack into a pretty small space, but I think the music added to the ambience.