What’s Peruvian food? New Modesto restaurant introduces Latin American cuisine to valley
One of Modesto’s most international retail plazas — featuring food from China, Vietnam, India and Afghanistan — has added another global contender for your taste buds.
A new Peruvian restaurant has opened in Coffee Plaza, at the corner of Coffee Road and Floyd Avenue. Las Uvas Restaurant highlights the cuisine of the coastal South American country, from a chef who has spent the last two decades cooking specialties from the region.
Chef and co-owner Abel Casillas opened his new Peruvian spot in the former space of longtime Mexican restaurant Guadalajara Taqueria, which had closed in the past year. While the cuisines of the two Latin American countries share a language, their flavor profiles are different and distinct.
Since opening last month in the plaza, Casillas said customers have wandered in expecting the normal burritos and quesadillas. Instead, his menu introduces them to a whole new world of spices and influences.
Casillas came from Mexico to the Bay Area about 25 years ago. During that time he was a longtime chef at the popular Bay Area Peruvian restaurant chain Limón, which has half a dozen locations. But this year he decided to take the plunge and open his own place celebrating the food he has specialized in for more than 20 years.
He decided to move to Modesto to open his restaurant after frequent visits to see members of his wife’s family, including her mother and sister, who live in the Central Valley. He also was excited to be the only Peruvian restaurant in the city.
Modesto had a short-lived Peruvian restaurant, Evelyn’s Mexican and Peruvian Food, that closed in 1999. The closest current restaurants dedicated to the cuisine is one county over in Lathrop.
After a five month renovation, which included installing all new kitchen equipment, Las Uvas (which means grapes in Spanish), opened for daily lunch and dinner. While the decor inside remains the same, Casillas and his co-owner Benny Virrueta, who is related by marriage, have transformed the menu.
Some of the offerings may seem familiar, including ceviche and tacos, but the ingredients stand out.
Instead of typical Mexican ceviche with its pico de gallo and cilantro, the Peruvian ceviche at Las Uvas has sweet potatoes and toasted cancha and boiled choclo (kinds of Peruvian corn) and is served with plantain or taro chips (which runs $14 to $18 depending on seafood type). And instead of serving typical street tacos with onions and cilantro, the Peruvian version has citrus cabbage on top.
“This is flavorful and comforting home-cooked food with different spices,” Casillas said.
To get those traditional Peruvian flavors, Casillas said he has to source some of his spices and produce from the Bay Area because they aren’t available through Central Valley distributors.
With those ingredients he makes iconic Peruvian dishes from scratch that highlight the country’s cross-cultural influences, including lomo saltado. The dish is an example of chifa, Chinese-Peruvian fusion food inspired by the long history of Chinese migration that started in the mid 19th Century when laborers came to the Latin American country to work its plantations.
The lomo saltado at Las Uvas is made with juicy chunks of sirloin steak, quick stir fried in a wok with tomatoes and onions in a soy-ginger-garlic sauce and served over fries and rice (which runs $22).
The eatery also offers pollo a la brasa, Peru’s signature blackened rotisserie chicken served whole, halved or quartered (from $14 to $23). While traditionally roasted over charcoal, the restaurant has a cabinet-sized open-flame gas rotisserie where you can see the birds slowly basting as they spin.
Casillas also brews his own chicha morada, one of the national drinks of Peru. Made by boiling purple corn, pineapple, apple and cinnamon together, the result is a tasty, sweet purple concoction. Definitely order yourself a tall refreshing glass, or a pitcher, when you visit.
The restaurant is also in the process of getting its beer and wine license, and soon will be able to serve alcoholic beverages along with its chicha morada and other aguas frescas.
Already he said residents with Peruvian backgrounds have started coming, and coming back, from across the valley. And he is excited for more people to experience the food.
“I hope the people here give us a try and get to know (Peruvian flavors),” Casillas said.
Las Uvas Restaurant, at 2400 Coffee Road Suite C in Modesto, is open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. For more information call 209-859-6021 or visit www.lasuvasrestaurant.com.
