Every spoonful is sinful, and certainly, you'll come back for more. For a taste of Francesco is but the beginning of a love affair with the culture and cuisine of Peru.
Every other week in this space, Gusto will tell the story of a South Florida restaurant and provide advice to diners along the way. Like love (or lust), a meal can be a passport into a culture.
From Lima to Coral Gables comes Francesco, regarded as one of the best seafood restaurants in Peru, a coastal country gifted with fabulous marine life and one of the most flavorful cuisines in South America.
Barely 4 months old, Francesco is housed on Alcazar Avenue in a quaint yellow bungalow with hunter green awnings. Overlooking the mirrored dining room is a splendid but small painting of the Machu Picchu Inca ruins high in the Andean cordillera, the only visible touch of Peru. A picture of the Sacred Heart, typical of Catholic homes in the Spanish world, also graces the walls, as this is a family enterprise that now straddles two countries.
The restaurant is named after patriarch Francesco Danovaro, the family's Italian grandfather. Father Aldo operates the 18-year-old restaurant in Lima; son Franco oversees what he calls ``the Miami adventure.''
Franco has brought with him three chefs from Lima, but not easily: Getting visas in a post-Sept. 11 world proved tougher than usual. But he prevailed, and in just a short while, and largely through word of mouth, the restaurant has become a meeting place for well-heeled Peruvians in South Florida.
''We're like a little embassy for Peru,'' Franco says.
Cross-continental fans of Francesco order without even looking at the leather-bound menu, which is small and specialized because Danovaro prepares ''whatever Peruvian specialty you'd like to eat.'' Hence, it helps to bring a cultural guide, as I did on my first visit -- a huachano, one who hails from the northern coastal region of Huacho.
Or simply order from the tasting menu ($36 a person for dinner) and let Franco and his bilingual staff guide you. They are expert interpreters of the difference between ceviches and tiraditos ($14 for a sampler plate, but included in the price of the tasting menu). Tiraditos are slimmer cuts of fish and seafood. The tiraditos are not as thin as carpaccio nor as chunky as ceviche, and they don't come with onions. Both styles are raw fish in lime juice, but the secret to perfecting the flavor lies in the hands of a chef who knows how long to let the fish marinate.
Before launching into such delights, however, start with a glass of jerez sour ($6), Francesco's Miami interpretation of the national Peruvian drink. This one is made with sherry and nicknamed in English ''sherry sour.'' It's the no-hard-liquor-license version of pisco sour, made with a clear brandy distilled from the fermented juice of black grapes grown in the Inca Valley. With sherry or with brandy, the tart drink is a must-try.
Nothing goes better with a jerez sour than a plate of choros a la chalaca ($9), boiled mussels in their shells topped with finely chopped onions, a touch of lime, olive oil and the Peruvian rocoto, a red pepper that looks like a tomato and is simply divine. Another topping that makes these mussels ultra special: choclo, the unique large, almost-white corn of Peru. (My huachano companion swears by the choclo with rice, $4 as a side dish.)
The combination of flavors makes the mussels the sexiest item on the menu -- a dish to be shared.
But what's a Peruvian restaurant without ceviche? Here, it comes in three renditions. The classic, lime and salt-based, is delicious enough, featuring fish in its freshest state. But try the ceviche as well in wonderful Peruvian sauces, a mild yellow pepper sauce and Francesco's fabulous spicy red rocoto sauce.
Fresh tuna, salmon, mahi-mahi are prepared in myriad ways, as are camarones (shrimp) and conchitas (scallops). But the most delicious entrée we sampled was the clásico lomo saltado con tacu tacu de champigñones ($17), thin chunks of beef tenderloin sautéed with onions, tomato, red wine and soy sauce, accompanied by tacu tacu, a triangular shaped mass of fried beans and rice stuffed with mushrooms. When available, sample it with camote, a silky yellow potato that only grows in the Andes.
Dessert is . . . literally and figuratively . . . a sigh of pleasure.
Suspiro a la limeña ($4), ''Limean sigh,'' looks like oodles of dulce de leche topped with whipped cream, but it's neither. The sweet, caramel-colored paste is called manjar blanco and is less sweet and softer than the popular candied milk dessert of Latin America. And the topping is an Italian-style merengue made with egg whites. Francesco serves the suspiro lightly dusted with cinnamon in an elegant wine glass.
''This is the most typical of Peruvian desserts,'' Franco says.
Just as delicious is the mousse de lúcuma ($5) made from the lúcuma fruit, native to the Andean regions and grown by the Incas. (Lúcuma ice cream is said to be more popular in Peru than chocolate, vanilla or strawberry). The lúcuma mousse is also served in a wine glass over a chocolate brownie and is topped with a light chocolate syrup.
Every spoonful is sinful, and certainly, you'll come back for more. For a taste of Francesco is but the beginning of a love affair with the culture and cuisine of Peru.
