Ají Peruvian Cuisine is participating in Long Beach Food Scene Week 2024, a ten-day celebration of our city’s food culture with over 60 restaurants involved. To check out their menu, click here. For more information on LBFSW, click here.
This year, I’ve tried to focus on what I call legacy restaurants. Long Beach is experiencing a food renaissance—from pasta and pizza to coffee and cocktails—and that means a lot of newbies moving in and impressing palates. This also means that many of the OGs can be left behind without as much acknowledgment for paving the way.
Ají Peruvian Cuisine is one such place, celebrating ten years of serving 4th Street (and a place I last wrote about ten years ago as well). This Peruvian staple steered away from the casualness that defined El Pollo Imperial and brought with it the idea that Peruvian food deserved to be served with a sense of elevation.
The origins of Ají Peruvian Cuisine
Lima natives and husband-and-wife team Chef Mitto Barriga and Rosita Wang entered the United States workforce with a deep dive into the restaurant industry. Chef Mitto began by jumping between tapas joints and steakhouses. And that most notably included the famed Spanish space Cobras & Matadors in Beverly Hills.
In 2010, an Argentine businessman approached Chef Mitto about possibly opening a space in Downtown L.A. And this was just as the Peruvian scene began to boom there. You had Chef Ricardo Zarate, who moved his Mo-Chica concept out of Mercado de Paloma and into DTLA. Following that, he created a mini-empire by opening Picca and Paiche. And Mex Perú Gipsy was just a few years away from making a splash in that very neighborhood.
“He lived in Long Beach and discovered this place,” Chef Mitto said, gesturing around what used to be the Atlantic Studio salon before it moved westward on 4th Street and into DTLB. “And ten years later, here we are.”
Ají Peruvian Cuisine turns 10—and what that means as a Latin American restaurant dominated by Mexican food.
Formerly a hair salon that was eventually converted into a restaurant, the space has been a central cog for Long Beach Peruvian food. And, well, it is a part of what is considered the triad of Peruvian joints in Long Beach. You have El Pollo Imperial in North Long Beach. Then there’s Casa Chaski’s on the Westside. And Ají on Retro Row.
They even had a sandwich shop directly next door dubbed La Bodega Sanguchería Peruana. These sangucherías offer everything from sandwiches and meats to pasta and snacks. And La Bodega did much the same, with their bread made on site. It is much missed but we’re happy about one thing: Ají is still around after a decade of great Peruvian food.
When it comes to Latino Americans in the States, there is no question that Mexican culture dominates—leaving other Latin Americans on the margins of visibility. Even today, non-Mexican Latin American restaurants have a Mexican food section on their menu to appease some of SoCal’s backward interpretation of what defines Latin American food. In this sense, like its other Peruvian food compatriots, Ají stands in for representation in a way few do.
The food has remained consistently Peruvian—even when Chef Mitto has tried to shift.
Chef Mitto has primarily kept the menu traditional, his legion of followers ordering hefty amounts of lomitos and chaufa—and rightfully so. Among the first to offer staples like tacu tacu—where rice and beans are combined to create a cake of sorts that is crisped on the outside—and antichucho—delicate bits of beef heart on a skewer—the classics are where it’s at.
One of their most comforting dishes is a Peruvian classic: ají de gallina. In this dish, shreds of chicken and chunks of yellow potato are layered between rice and a hefty, creamy yellow gravy. It is warming, devourable, and simply delicious.
Their seco—which could very take over El Pollo Imperial as the city’s best version—shows off a deep green-hued, cilantro-beer sauce used to braise short rubs before being placed in a tub of beans with rice.
The causa—the cold mashed potato appetizer that is a staple in Peruvian food—has many variations. There’s causa limeña, which comes with a dollop of Dungeness crab and jalapeño aioli. Or the spicy tuna version with rocoto salsa. Or the camarones version, topped with a tempura-battered fried shrimp. My suggestion? Get the trio.
And yes, they are participating in Long Beach Food Scene Week 2024
This isn’t to say that Chef Mitto entirely dismisses offering specials. Ají’s menu for Long Beach Food Scene Week 2024—running through Aug. 18—is a stellar example of Chef Mitto flexing his explorative nature.
There’s a downright stellar halibut Tiradito set in a bowl of crema de ají amarillo. Chunks of crudo, delicately rolled before being placed in a bath of acid and an ever small bit of heat, are the stars of this clean appetizer. There’s a beautiful, seafood-centric play on his tacu tacu that comes with ocotpus, shrimp, and calamari in a creamy rocoto sauce. There’sgreen mussels, bathed in an ají mirasol butter concoction…
In other words: Go. Have some house-made chica morada. Get into the 80s and 90s rock en español soundtrack that lightly plays in the background. And take in what is some of Long Beach’s best Peruvian food.
Ají Peruvian Cuisine is located at 2308 E. 4th St.
