In this festive and traditional time, a Peruvian restaurant in Tribeca will take you to the Andean country with its delicious traditional dishes, with a gourmet touch that will make your mouth water. This is the story of the Peruvian chef who has achieved success with tenacity and passion for his culture.
“This is the characteristic smoky flavor of our Peruvian dish.”
It is a lomo saltado, a dish that will make you lick your fingers. The secret, says chef Rodrigo, is in the sauce.
“If you want to have a good tenderloin sauce, you have to make a good meat sauce first and then a good reduced sauce. And so on until you reach the power, the umami, the flavor that you are happy with… and put all the love and love of things. It comes out like magic,” says Rodrigo Fernandini, Peruvian chef.
He learned that magic from his mother and grandmother, back in Chiclayo, where he was born and raised. Today he is one of the owners and executive chef of the Artesano restaurant in Tribeca.
“In any case, it has to have a lot of juice,” Rodrigo adds about his lomo saltado.
After conquering Peruvian television, as a model and star of several reality shows, Fernandini worked in several restaurants in the capital of her country, where her passion for cooking was born.
“The second one when I entered the kitchen and saw the teamwork, the adrenaline, I fell completely in love and became literally obsessed with the kitchen and started working non-stop. And I dreamed of one day being able to make my own kitchen with all this knowledge that I was learning and being able to try to do my bit with Peruvian food.
At the age of 25 he decided to travel to California in the United States, where he worked in several Michelin-starred restaurants. Years later he received a proposal from other Latin Americans, now his partners, to open a Latin food restaurant in New York City.
“They wanted to combine Chilean, Ecuadorian, and Colombian food, which I love, but the issue that I am Peruvian, then I wanted to do something that I am passionate about, that comes from my heart so that I can express that in each dish, in each service. “.
And it is exactly that passion that is put into each dish, which is served with a historical explanation of its origin, part of the success of the Artesano restaurant, whose flavors will make you feel like you are in the Andean country.
“So that’s pretty much our mission with artisan, right? Taking you through Peru in every bite, in every course through culinary experience.”
An experience that just seeing these delicacies will make your mouth water, like the delicious Peruvian ceviche.
“A little spicy. We really like minced ceviche, a little bit of cilantro in there, mixing everything, all the flavors. It’s that little bug. This is the best seller of the house.”
Ají de gallina, ceviches and dozens of other delicacies are served on these stone plates, made by artisans in Peru. Savoring a cup of coffee in this restaurant is like transporting yourself to all the regions of the South American country.
“The three regions of Peru available in each cup of coffee. In other words, you can come here and at eight in the morning have a coffee as if someone in the jungle was drinking it now, or in the mountains or on the coast.”
Logically, we couldn’t leave without trying the lomo saltado.
