A Peruvian-Italian Menu at Los Balcones Hollywood

Los Balcones has been revamping both their locations and each one is different. I recently reviewed the Mestizo cuisine at Los Balcones Studio City and now I checked out the Los Balcones in Hollywood. The Hollywood location has recruited Chef Michelangelo "Miguel" Aliaga to helm the kitchen.

Chef Aliaga hails from northern Peru but he started his cooking career in Florence, Italy. In LA, he's worked at various Italian restaurants including All'Angelo and Cecconi's. Now, at Los Balcones he's able to combine his two roots. Los Balcones' menu still has the classic Peruvian dishes you'd expect to see like lomo saltado and ceviche, but he's also melding Peruvian and Italian cuisines in others.

During my visit I mainly stuck to the Peruvian-Italian dishes so I can try what the chef is getting creative with, except for the beef heart anticucho I got for the appetizer. I just have to get beef heart anticucho when I see it.

Anticucho (grilled beef heart, panca pepper, potatoes, rocoto sauce, $16)

When they do it well like they do here and the beef hearts are tender, you can't go wrong.

Agnolotti de seco (homemade ravioli stuffed with lamb and cilantro sauce, finished with rocoto aioli, $20)

A classic pasta dish but with distinctly Peruvian flavors with the rocoto aioli. This is a great representation of how the two cuisines work together.

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Los Balcones and Chef Ricardo Zarate Pairs Up to Serve Mestizo Cuisine in Studio City

Los Balcones has been dishing up traditional Peruvian food for a few years now in LA, but the Studio City location (which took over the old Girasol space) has partnered up with Chef Ricardo Zarate to revamp the whole menu along with chef Polit Castillo. The result is mestizo cuisine, referring to the multicultural influence both in Peru and on the menu, in particular the mix of Peruvian and Spanish cultures.

You won't find the traditional Peruvian food that you see at the other Los Balcones locations here. Beyond lomo saltado and ceviche, they want to show more of what modern cooking in Peru is like. We started with the Salmon tiradito, beet tiger's milk, roasted baby beets, orange miso, beet powder ($16)

Is this not the most beautiful tiradito you've ever seen? It was overall a great tiradito, although the beet slightly overpowers the salmon flavor.

Los Balcones also have some good cocktails, like this Margarita Sofia (tequila, passion fruit, lime, huacatay)

Ceviche frito, striped bass, rocoto leche de tigre, roasted sweet potato, cancha corn chulpe ($16)

This was my first time having ceviche frito (fried ceviche). It's apparently a fairly recent trend in Peruvian cooking where the seafood is marinated in leche de tigre (a la ceviche) and then fried. Adding this to the menu is a nod to the evolution of Peruvian cuisine.

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