The dean of Carlos Delgado’s culinary school told him he should leave. Not the profession, just the program — and she’d write him an enthusiastic letter of recommendation. An instructor had come to her with concerns about the teenage student who’d butchered a fish so precisely and efficiently that she told him to teach the rest of the lesson. Delgado had been honing his kitchen skills at his grandmother Graciela’s side since he was a child in the port city of Callao, Peru, dispatching chickens in the backyard, navigating the markets, and helping with anything she needed to make three meals a day for the family. Cooking was in his blood, bones, hands, and heart — first a matter of financial survival, and then as a calling. Why spend the time and money on school?
Preparing a fish at Causa.
Credit: Food & Wine / Alex Lau
Within a few short years (and with only $2,000 in school debt), Delgado opened the ceviche-focused Ocopa in Washington, D.C. There, he caught the eye of VIP diner José Andrés who issued the then-24-year-old an open-ended offer of employment. Seven years at Andrés’ ThinkFoodGroup’s Chifa (Chinese Peruvian) and Nikkei (Japanese Peruvian) restaurant China Chilcano gave Delgado a hands-on education in the intellectual and practical business of running a restaurant empire. By 2022, it was time to start building his own.
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Delgado’s vision wasn’t to create a “regular, traditional Criollo restaurant” — not that there is anything wrong with that, he says. Rather, he wanted to challenge himself to create a multivalent space with a “normal, casual, chill vibe” upstairs at Amazonia, a fine-dining tasting menu below at Causa, and a fresh fish market available to guests on both levels. The entirety of the place transports diners to the distinct regions of Peru through the ingredients and dishes inextricable from their identities. Bold, yes, but necessary for a chef with a restless brain and a marrow-deep calling to make the rest of the world understand the beauty of the country that raised him.
Delgado, now 36, is fully immersed in this mission of ambassadorship and education, both with the dining public and with his team. He sandwiches a welcome bite — the titular causa, a traditional Peruvian potato salad with aji amarillo chiles, lime, and endless choices for fillings and toppings — between two whimsical green, grain-flecked crisps in the shape of chickens. He’s grown potatoes in a greenhouse atop the building that houses Causa and Amazonia and even commissioned a serving vessel that incorporates living vine and nods to the clay oven traditionally used to cook them, all to represent the life cycle of an ingredient so fundamental to Peruvian cuisine.
“”I want to keep expanding Peruvian food as a category, be the ambassador of the Peruvian culture movement in the States.””
Carlos Delgado
No detail is too small. Each kind of potato is served with a traditional sauce that best complements their flavor and texture. The restaurant’s macambo beans are grown by a women’s co-op in the Amazonian lowlands, and a server explains with absolute conviction why this dish crafted to highlight this wild cacao kin is the greatest dessert she has ever had. And just like that day in culinary school, he shares this knowledge with his team, guiding a line cook meticulously butchering a dry-aged fish — flown over from Japan and on the menu for $115 a pound that day — coaching her through a tricky part until the confidence is palpable on her face and in her sure, steady blade.
The team operates seamlessly, but staff members are encouraged to let their personalities and passions shine through — geeking out about scobies if a guest shows interest in the house-fermented purple corn kombucha, hand-writing the breed of impossibly sweet peppers served alongside kizami wasabi and yuzu-soy ponzu on the sashimi platter when a diner expresses a desire to grow some, nodding along as they notice a guest losing themself in a lo-fi remix of Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise.” And they are connected by earpiece, so every one of them — including Delgado — knows that I have been sitting at the bar alone, my senses jolted and my skin in constant goosebumps since the first bite of the tasting menu, and that I’m suddenly researching flights to Lima.
Delgado’s rooftop greenhouse.
Credit: Food & Wine / Alex Lau
“I have a long list of restaurants that I’d like to open,” says Delgado, who has since debuted the Nikkei-style hand roll restaurant Maru San and is on track for the opening of the coastal Latin joint Brisa, which he’s leading as culinary director. If Delgado has his way, they’re just the first of many homages to Peru’s diverse cuisine still to come. “I want to keep expanding Peruvian food as a category, be the ambassador of the Peruvian culture movement in the States.” he says. “Who else is [putting] Peru on the map?”
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