Kjolle
Kjolle is the sister restaurant to Central, the most famous restaurant in Lima. It’s the project of Pia León, co-chef and partner with Virgilio Martínez in Central. Despite being co-chef and partner, she usually doesn’t get as much credit. With Kjolle she will hopefully get the showcase she deserves.
It’s a more intimate space, light and airy, and a menu that includes both a la carte and a tasting menu. Apparently she was originally not going to offer a tasting menu at all but I’m glad she did. We got to try a lot more of her dishes. The techniques are impeccable but it feels more personal - the chefs come out to introduce some of the dishes and there’s less pomp and more personal attention. It felt friendlier and welcoming.
The dishes are still hyper-focused on Peruvian ingredients but not constrained by the “altitudes” and regions concept of Central. Instead she has a free hand to combine the ingredients that make the most sense for the dish at hand. This means, for example, that you can find seafood combined with Andean fruits or cacao.
The standout dish was a three tuber tart. Oca, olluco, and potato. Everyone knows that potatoes come from Peru and that there are a lot of different varieties of potato. What is less well known is that there are a lot of other relatives of the potato that are also delicious and eaten in Peru. Oca and olluco are crunchier and sweeter than potato and are usually not mashed. Kjolle makes them into a tart, the shell I’m sure made from an interesting native grain that I didn’t catch, the base a potato puree (with goat cheese?), and on top, thinly sliced crunchy cooked oca, and topped with dehydrated olluco. The contrasting textures, complementary flavors, and natural colors worked really well together.
We had arrived early so we got to spend some time in Mayo, the bar downstairs. I was very excited to see all the interesting infusions and ferments they’re doing. I tried a wrinkled lemon and aji pepper non-alcoholic ferment, while Debbie had a house fermented ginger ale. Lemon and capsicum flavors are a personal favourite of mine and combined nicely with the yeast and fermentation flavours. I sipped it through most of the meal. It’s a nice place to just hang out and worth showing up a little early for.
I really enjoyed Kjolle. It’s easier to get in to, the food is just as exciting and technically excellent as Central, and it’s a warm welcoming place.
