Adams Morgan tends to treat its serious dining

Adams Morgan tends to treat its
serious dining destinations with
false respect; its denizens project
an image of sophistication, as if
they might enjoy a fine meal, but
can never seem to release their
pie holes from the Miller Lite
spigot. A few full-service restaurants—Cashion’s Eat Place and
San Marco leap to mind—have
dared to stand up to the hood’s
drinking culture. But the owners
of both places are now cashing
out, leaving behind an increasing
number of joints that cater to this
insatiable appetite for after-hours
munchies or plodding menus of
grease and cheese to accompany
the Super Soaker blasts of suds.
Enter Las Canteras, which
clings to the southern fringe of
the 18th Street NW strip. The
narrow space, painted Indian red
and accented with dark woods
and Peruvian art, oozes respect—
for history, for culture, for the
very people who choose to stumble into the place from the barely
contained weekend Bacchanal.
Las Canteras, in so many words,
scorns the live-now, puke-later
ethos of Adams Morgan.
Chef Eddy Ancasi, a Peruvian
native who has worked in the
kitchens at El Chalan and the late
El Tumi in Silver Spring, is the
driving force behind Las Canteras. It might seem a long shot,
but Ancasi’s apparent plea for a
more refined sensuality stands a
decent chance at succeeding in
Adams Morgan, if mostly because Peruvian food looks to be
the next “it” cuisine.
Influenced by Incas, Africans,
Spaniards, even Chinese and Japanese, Peruvian cooking has not yet
deeply dented the American dining scene, save for the sweaty pollo
a la brasa outlets in our more ethnic suburbs. But the infrastructure
is in place for a dramatic change
of leadership in Latin American
cookery; one day, years from now,
you may find yourself arguing
with friends over which Peruvian
restaurant—not Mexican or Salvadoran—to visit.
Lima is sort of banking on it;
over the last decade or so, the
capital has opened nearly 20
cooking schools, graduating far
too many future chefs for the
country to handle. Many, if not
most, of those cooks now wind
up in China or Central America
or some other country that isn’t
as stingy with work visas as the
U.S.; many will return to Lima
with the knowledge they have
gained in those foreign locales.
Just don’t expect those chefs to
stay there. Gastón Acurio—sort of
Peru’s Wolfgang Puck, Mario Batali,
and Jean-Georges Vongerichten all
rolled into one massively influential chef—wants to be the Johnny
Appleseed of Peruvian cuisine. He
already has opened four restaurants
in SouthAmerican cities and has his
sights set on America. He would
like others to follow his lead. “Our
dream,” Acurio told Reuters last
year, “is that in 10 years there will be
50,000 to 100,000 Peruvian restaurants out there.There are something
like 200,000 Mexican restaurants
in the world, so why shouldn’t we
aspire to something similar?”
Ancasi is way ahead of the
Acurio curve with Las Canteras,
just one of several new panPeruvian eateries in the area,
including a second Ceviche in
Glover Park (the original in Silver
Spring opened in 2005) and the
forthcoming Yaku in Arlington.
Ancasi, in fact, has been preparing Peruvian food in the States
for so long now that he knows
what awaits those future Lima
chefs if they ever step foot on
American soil: compromise, lots
of compromise.
Sure, the availability of Peruvian ingredients has increased
significantly sinceAncasi, a mostly
self-taught chef, first started cooking up north 21 years ago. But he
still has a helluva time getting his
hands on the more than 3,000 varieties of potato found in Peru or
even the fresh cheese available in
his hometown of Arequipa; more
predictably, Ancasi has learned to
shape his cuisine for the American palate, which tends to prefer
milder flavors and, much to my
surprise, smaller portions than
native Peruvians.
These compromises play out in
ways that are not always obvious
to the lay eater: The potatoes for
Ancasi’s causa de pollo come from
Idaho, not Peru; the cheese for the
ensalada de palta y queso arrives
from Mexico, not Arequipa; and
the peppers for his seviche classico include the more pedestrian
jalapeño, not the traditional (and
fiery) rocoto.
But you know what? Each one
of these three dishes passes not
only the sniff test—that ineffable
calculation that you’re in the presence of “authenticity”—but also
the taste test. The causa appetizer,
in particular, is a work of art, a
small cake built with thick squares
of potatoes tinted yellow with aji
pepper paste, between which are
sandwiched layers of sweet corn
and seasoned chicken.
If you exclude the shrimp version, which smacks more of iodine than lime, the seviches here
taste straight out of Lima, even if
Las Canteras sells the dish well
after noon. Reality check: No
self-respecting Peruvian would
be caught dead eating raw marinated fish in the afternoon; they’d
wait instead for the next day’s
fresh catch. No matter. Ancasi’s
expertly balanced seviches, at any
time of the day, come with halfmoon cakes of sweet potatoes and
cancha, a loose pile of roasted corn
kernels that add both crunch and
a warm counterpunch to the raw,
acidic fish.
The main courses, for reasons that may say as much about
Americans as Ancasi, prove a
more frustrating experience. The
best of the bunch I tasted is the
quinotto, Ancasi’s creamy, nutty
take on risotto in which he substitutes quinoa (the “mother of all
grains” in Peru) for Arborio rice.
The lomo saltado, by contrast, is
a soggy beef stir-fry dominated
by the in-your-face flavors of soy
and cilantro. But at least the dish
fails on the side of boldness. The
aji de gallina, a shredded chicken plate smothered with a nutty
bread sauce, has all the spice of
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, as
if the chef’s concern of offending
his white-collar constituency led
him to drain the dish of flavor.
Which leads me back to my
original point: Have the swilling hipsters of Adams Morgan
embraced the complexity of Las
Canteras, or do they just want to
down a frothy, kickass pisco sour
in the downstairs bar? “Most of
the people who come to this area
[on] Fridays and Saturdays are
people, usually young people,
who don’t have that much money
or are just looking for places…to
drink,” says Ancasi, an Adams
Morgan resident. “Because of
that, I can see the difference on
the crowd….To answer your
question, I don’t know if it will
work, but I hope so.”
Las Canteras, 2307 18th St. NW, (202)
265-1780.
Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to [email protected].
Or call (202) 332-2100, x 466.