The story below is from our July/August 2021 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Peruvian food – and its history – shines in Inka Grill’s international menu.
John Park
Over the past decades, Roanoke’s food story has become an ever-widening tale of lands far away. Italy, Greece, Brazil, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Japan…these are just some of the many cuisines giving expression to the Star City’s dining experience. With the addition of Inka Grill two years ago, Roanoke now boasts a food story that includes Peru, a country whose foods are truly the best expression of its rich and storied past.
Inka Grill owner, Percy Rojas, was born and raised in Lima, Peru. He spent his childhood helping prepare meals and engaging daily in the life and activity of his family’s kitchen. When it came time for Rojas to decide on a profession, he chose the medical field. But he didn’t pass the test for university entrance. Rojas easily shifted course, going to work in a French restaurant instead.
Rojas says he fell in love with the fast-paced environment of the kitchen. While many people find the atmosphere of professional kitchens chaotic and intimidating, Rojas found it energizing. He loved working under pressure and found he had a natural talent for learning the chef’s trade.
After several years working in Peru, Rojas decided to branch out on his own. He moved first to Costa Rica, then Orlando, Florida and eventually to Miami. In each place, Rojas followed the same pattern: first working in established restaurants, then opening his own Peruvian-themed places. Rojas says his time in Miami was especially important for him. It was while working in some of Miami’s most elite dining establishments Rojas discovered and developed his own recipes which make up the menu of Inka Grill.
Rojas says Roanoke’s steady growth in the tourism industry drew him to the area. He saw potential for Peruvian food to thrive. He also had friends who already lived in Roanoke encouraging him to come and helping his family transition from coastal living to Blue Ridge mountain life.
While Rojas has found the reception to Peruvian cuisine in Roanoke a pleasant one, he also says he’s had to adjust his foods to fit with Roanokers’ less spicy palate.
“In Miami, we can have a spicy menu,” says Rojas. “In Roanoke, we have to tamp down the spices a bit.”
Rojas chuckles a little about this. However, he admits his preference is for less spicy foods, rather than overly spiced. He goes on to explain that topographically Peru can be divided into three regions: the Pacific coastal region, the Andes mountain region, and the Amazon tropics region. Each of these regions produce foods vast in their differences and unique to their climates and soils. But these foods don’t stay in their individual regions.
“Everyone and everything goes through Lima,” says Rojas. “And this makes a fusion [of food] which is Peru.”
This “fusion” of cuisines isn’t only geographic, limited to Peru’s Pacific location in South America. Peru’s foods tell a deeply historic and international tale. Before the Spanish arrived to the region in the 1500s, the lands now called Peru were part of the Incan Empire, which stretched itself along most of South America’s western coast. The Incans had an established cuisine already diverse in growing regions and waterways. Spain’s invasion and conquering of the Incan Empire in the 1500s followed a natural infusion of Spanish foods and cooking. In the 1800s when Peru gained its independence, a host of new international influences had their effect on Peru and its foods.
To read Inka Grill’s menu is to witness thousands of years of Peruvian history. There are those indigenous foods foundational to Peruvian cuisine. These include potatoes and other tubers, legumes, corn, peppers and pseudo-grain varietals (quinoa and amaranth are examples). Layering and fusing with these are Spanish staples: rice, wheat and meats: pork, chicken and beef. Filling out the fusion is the Italian, French and Asian influences, all lending their ingredients and culinary traditions to the canon of Peruvian cooking.
Of Peru’s native foods, potatoes easily occupy a top spot. Rojas says there are close to 4,000 potato varietals grown in Peru. They all come from the Andean region, and are nearly all grown by small-scale farmers diligent to preserve and pass forward their varietals through the generations. Potatoes provide both the foundation and filling out of a multitude of Inka Grill’s dishes.
In their appetizer menu alone, there are three different varieties of potatoes featured, each one cooked a different way. The shrimp causa is a stunningly beautiful dish featuring smashed yellow Peruvian potatoes flavored with yellow pepper and lime juice, mounded and artfully topped with gorgeous, coral-colored jumbo shrimp. The huancaína (pronounced wan-kay-eena) potatoes and huancaína yucca (also a tuber) appetizers are served boiled and smothered in Peruvian spicy cheese sauce. One of Inka Grill’s most popular appetizers, and my personal favorite, tuna tartare, is served with sweet potato chips.
While potatoes serve as a foundation, peppers provide the flavor and heat profile for nearly every Peruvian dish. There are over 50 varieties of peppers grown and used in Peruvian cooking, with six most common to all dishes. Rojas says there are five he relies upon at Inka Grill. These include aji amarillo, rocoto, aji limo, aji verde and aji pinchito de mono. Each of these peppers vary in flavor and heat profile. The aji amarillo pepper is especially versatile. It’s what gives the cream sauce in Inka Grill’s ceviche de la pescado Inti it’s beautiful golden color and flavor (Inti is the name of the Incan sun god). Aji amarillo also adds flavor to such traditional dishes as tacu tacu con lomo, one of my favorite Inka Grill dishes, and lomo saltado, Rojas’s favorite meal.
Inka Grill’s Chaufas menu provides yet more layers to Peru’s story told through its foods. Rojas says chaufa, Chinese for fried rice, is a fried rice dish developed by Chinese Peruvians who immigrated to Peru as laborers in the 19th century. They cooked meals with whatever ingredients and tools were available to them. Chaufa is a combination of rice and vegetables grown in Peru, mixed with Chinese flavors of ginger and soy sauce, and then stir fried in a single wok pan. Despite chaufa’s humble beginnings, it has become one of Peruvian cuisine’s premiere dishes for expressing its Asian culinary heritage.
In what seems like an opposite culinary direction to travel, is Inka Grill’s International menu with its obvious Italian and French influences. And yet, even here, the essence of Peru shines through. Peruvian style pesto sauces, creamy huiancaína sauce, and the “golden” aji amarillo sauce grace nearly every menu item. Of the several times we’ve dined at Inka Grill, my husband still claims the lingüini fruitimare his personal favorite. This dish is a beautiful expression of Peru: seafood from Peru’s coast and flavors from its soil, given shape through Peruvian-Italian hands.
Dining at Inka Grill truly is like jumping into the pages of history and “hearing” Peru’s story by tasting the complexities of its cuisine. It has also proven something to me that I’ve long suspected: The story of any place is oftentimes best told through the beauty of its foods.
Patrick Henry Hotel
611 S Jefferson St., Roanoke 24011
540-566-4655
Hours | Mon – Thurs: 11 AM – 9 PM
Fri – Sat: 11 AM – 10 PM
Sun: 11 AM – 8 PM
3033 Brambleton Ave SW,
Roanoke, VA 24015
(540) 655-9107
Hours:
Mon – Sat: 11:30 AM – 10 PM
Sun: 11:30 AM – 7:30 PM
The story above is from our July/August 2021 issue. For more stories, subscribe today or view our FREE digital edition. Thank you for supporting local journalism!