Artesano Brings Latin American Cuisine To A Much Higher Level In New York

Dealing in superlatives is risky business when overdone, so I’m careful to dole out words like “the best” about the restaurants I visit. But this year, still young, while giving me a great deal of pleasure in everything from a new taberna to a steakhouse, also afforded me the opportunity to declare that Artesano near City Hall, along with Essence by Christopher on the Upper West Side (which I wrote about in this column last month) were especially outstanding. I’m pretty sure that by the end of 2023 neither will be easily surpassed.

Artesano is unique for several reasons: For while it may not be the only Peruvian restaurant in New York (others seem to specialize in rotisserie fare or ceviches), it is the best looking and most serious about a cuisine that incorporates native American, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese (chifa) influences. With partners Roman Cervantes, Atif Ali and David Cabrera, Chef Rodrigo Fernandini, from Chiclayo, near Lima, Peru, opened Artesano two months ago and have attracted a lively downtown crowd ever since.

Fernandini’s move to the U.S. was to Silicon Valley to hone his skills, and here he works with a small crew in a bright open kitchen where you can watch them wield their knives, spoons and tweezers to create beautiful presentations on an array of rustic stone plates.

There is a lively small bar upfront and 45 seats in the dining area with the feel of a rain forest, with trees and hanging ferns, corn husks and stone slab floors. Lighting is very good, noise level moderate, and some days of the week they have a live jazz combo.

There is an à la carte menu as well as a seven-course $140 tasting menu, a VIP table tasting menu ($150) and a private dining room downstairs.

Marek Trocha has created a large array of well-made cocktails as a showcase for Peruvian pisco spirits, offering a $60 lineup of three pisco mixtures.

All of this background is to the good, but what makes Artesano one of a kind is Fernandini’s marvelous handwork, which of course, begins with a variety of ceviches, the best being a collection of them on one plate at $30, including the catch of the day, octopus, fried calamari, the Peruvian corns called choclo and chulpi, sweet potato, the Incan hot chile paste aji amarillo and tiger’s milk citrus marinade. It’s a bright set-up of flavors for what is to follow.

Steak tartare with mashed potato causa ($30) has the creamy sweetness of avocado and a sachotomate (tomatillo tomato) ketchup.

Pumpkin tortelloni ($26), which reminds me of the same filling Italians use at Christmastime in their ravioli, is cooked in a huacatay black mint butter and filled with ripe kabocha squash. The pasta itself is supposed to be “prepared with an activated charcoal reduction,” which is a mystery to me, and the fish is paired with a lobster tail and a bisque.

Among the main courses octopus ($38) comes with tender lima beans and an emulsion made from the octopus with aji amarillo dust to give it further seasoning, while Chiclayo duck ($42) is a very hearty pastiche of juicy duck breast confit cooked in a Peruvian beer while rice is cooked in the rendered duck fat. This is then dressed with a piperat Huacaina sauce with melted cheese, onions, yellow pepper, a sauce of hot rocoto peppers in a gel. Chifa pork ($36 ) shows off the influence of Cantonese cooking by combining well-fatted pork belly with a sweet potato purée, beech mushrooms, grilled baby bok choy and pickled turnips, then glazed with a char siu barbecue containing hoisin, soy sauce, Chinese 5 spice and honey

The outstanding dessert is a pleasantly exotic green curl called “The Mor

ay” ($12), named after an actual archeological site near Cuzco, Peru. It is a cheese mousse, served with a sweet corn ice cream, candied baby corn, a crisp chulpi praline and candied choclo as well. This is all set beside a NY cheesecake mousse.

These dishes are complex and require inordinate attention to detail under the stress of a full house. That Fernandini can accomplish this with a small kitchen crew shows the critical aspect of having been very rigorously trained under master chefs. His food is not concocted off the top of his head but comes more from his Peruvian heart and soul. Combine that with great technique and you have a truly superb new restaurant.

ARTESANO

90 Chambers Street

212-372-0297

Open Tues.-Sat. for dinner