You can’t help but start an evening at any of Coya’s restaurants with a pair Pisco Sours. It would just feel… wrong. Evidently a fair few people were doing the same as the cool, colourful bar at the front of the restaurant was packed. Noisy too, but that can’t be helped with the drinks flowing. Once we moved on to our second drinks and were ushered into the restaurant proper however, I couldn’t help but miss the noise.
Coya evidently loves its neo-Aztec theme. You can’t help but notice the blocky archway dominating the centre of the restaurant. Apparently it’s more than decoration – we were told that walking through the none-too-tall arch is good luck. Not that we really needed luck to get a decent table; on a Friday night the restaurant was half full at best. For a restaurant that’s been open for just a month, that’s a little worrying.
It’s hard to see why it’s the case. Having been to the Mayfair restaurant I know just how busy it gets and the food here is just as good if not slightly better. The menu revolves around a sharing concept, essentially meaning that you’ll need to order a fair few dishes. We were recommended four starters, two mains and a salad for the two of us and that really wasn’t overkill. We even had room for dessert.
Beautifully fresh squares of sesame seed-bordered yellowfin tuna were livened up by some lightly pickled cucumber while miniature tacos stuffed with raw diced salmon were spiked with a citrus hint of aji limo chilli. Both had barely five or six mouthfuls in the entire dish, but the flavours were more than big enough to make up for that.
Because I’m a sucker for wings both good and bad I went for the Alitas de Pollo. Fortunately the tamarind-glazed wings were firmly on the good end of the spectrum, spiced salt emphasising the sweet-sour tang of the glaze. They were messy work though and despite a bowl of lemon water not really recommended for an elegant dinner.
The same can be said of the Gambas, essentially an impressive pair of stretched out and skewered tiger prawns straight from the grill. They seemed like a barbeque extra rather than fine dining, albeit a deeply satisfying one with a good amount of smoky aji panca.
Using the word ‘salad’ for our Ensalda de Cangrejo side might be a bit misleading; the tower of crab topped with a tiger prawn seemed to use every colour other than green. After crushing in some tortilla-esque chips into the mix along with sweet corn aiol it was a starter in itself.
At this point we were still on our second cocktails – the fiery Jalapeño-infused Aji Margarita and refreshing, gingery Chilcano – but it didn’t stop the sommelier bringing over a wonderfully dry Argentine white to match the food, as well as a palate-cleansing glass of sake for moving on to the mains.
Any time I see ‘josper’ on a menu I gravitate towards it. The intensely hot Peruvian grill is a carnivore’s wet dream, searing meat with a charcoal finish on the outside while keeping all the good stuff inside. It certainly worked for my rib-eye; if it didn’t seem excessive I’d have ordered it twice over.
I found the Chuletas de Borrego less successful, though the garlic chips that accompanied the lamb chops were perfect. The meat itself wasn’t bad by any stretch, it just came nowhere near the heights of the beef. The addition of roasted tamarillo (the delicious bastard lovechild of a plum and tomato) was the only really memorable aspect of it.
These were of course matched with reds, the first of which really wasn’t to my tastes. The spicy, full-bodied wine was certainly what you expect from Chile, but I usually prefer something fruitier – which arrived almost as soon as I rejected the first. Another red followed for desert – an exotic fruit platter and dulce de leche-filled chocolate slice – but was more like a less fortified port, perfect as a digestif.
It’s hard to fault the food at Coya except maybe that the starters are a little sparse. The dishes were vibrant, fresh and flavourful, utilising the pantheon of spices and chillies inbuilt to Latin American cuisine. The atmosphere however… well, hopefully it will be a bit busier next time. At least I’ll be going again.
