This Peruvian Chicken Spot Is One of the Country's Best New Restaurants — The Experts

So what makes a really good Peruvian chicken to me is the juiciness, the flavor, and a crispy skin. Our menu is pretty streamlined. It's what you would see in Lima in a polleria. We do chicken, fries, salad. I want people to come in and know that they're getting the quality, the execution of a fine-dining restaurant, but in a casual, fun space. We've been open just under a year, and the community in Phoenix has been very supportive. It's special. It's something that people can relate to. Who doesn't love chicken and fries? So right now, we're gonna run through the build for our sandwich. We have our chicken in our demi that we make in-house. We reduce chicken feet and chicken backs. We take some of the jus from the chickens from the rotisserie as well. Double punch, double whammy. Traditionally, salsa criolla is lime juice, aji limón, and red onion. So I made a version of that for our sandwich, which is our pickled Fresnos, red onion, and our greens. And then for our acidity, I use our vinaigrette instead of lime juice. It's very complex and delicious, and there's really nothing like it. So these are our Bella Nevins chickens that we got out of Pennsylvania, and he's just tying them up right before he dusts them. They're air-chilled chickens. With air-chilled, it helps with the crispy skin. So we tie them so they stay intact and they cook evenly. If we didn't tie these up, they would probably fall apart in the oven. The wings would be all over the place, and they'd be breaking, and we wouldn't want that. I would do more if I could fit more. Probably do two to three cases a day, so 20 to 30. Not great at math, but that's a lot, yeah. We use 22 spices. Well, the spices we get from Mount Hope out of Sedona. So these are a lot of things that you would see in a marinated and brewed, but just a dry version of forage. It'll really give it that authentic flavor. It really didn't take me too long to come up with this spice blend. Probably about nine tries till I got it. Nice little shower of rub. Make sure we get in the cavity. It's gonna penetrate through the meat, so definitely very important to get it all in there. So now I'm gonna cover them up, and then we're gonna put them in the walk-in for the next two days. And one of those days is in our Lexan containers, and then from there, we'll hang dry them for another day to dry out so the skin comes out nice and crispy. We have Marbu charcoal here. It's a very clean-burning, high-heat charcoal that enables you to get a nice smoky flavor and a nice crisp to the chicken. Most rotisserie ovens that you see are gas, where the Josper is charcoal and wood. This beauty comes from Spain. They tell me it's one of three in the U.S., so I'm very fortunate to have it here. So I started with half charcoal, and then I'll add some pecan wood. It just has a great flavor with chicken, and also doesn't penetrate through to the meat itself. It's not overbearing, just a nice, subtle touch. My background in food, I started when I was 25. My family had a burger shop in Phoenix, so helping out with them. And then from there, I moved to Peru to learn more about my heritage and cooking. I was there for three years, and it was just a really impactful time in my life. That's where I met my business partner, David Goluboff. It was always a dream of ours to open up a place. So normally, we can fit about 40 chickens on here. We let them cook for about an hour. As we sell, we'll keep on adding more chickens so they can be as fresh as possible. I've worked in fine dining in Japan and Peru. Fine dining, it's fine-tuned. You have to be accurate. What we're doing here, it's the same from the chicken to the fries. From what they tell me, people really love the French fries here. So... What do you do with it? Trying to be modest. So we make our fries in-house. We use Kennebec potatoes. We punch them out, let them soak, and then from there, we blanch them. We let the potatoes sit for a couple minutes just to break down the starches. It's a water and white vinegar solution. We're about to start boiling them. 50 pounds. A little more now. Yeah, you can't really break it down into one specific thing that makes them great. It's the whole love and effort that goes into it. And we don't have a jet engine burner. We just have this guy. It's a struggle when we have to do this while we're open. We have a lot on our plate. It can get a little hectic. And I've got one and a half more boxes to go through. It usually takes about three or four hours total from start to finish. But now we're gonna let these sit for about 20, 25 minutes. Peru's the land of potato, and it is very traditional to have just fresh-made fries on a regular basis for whatever the cuisine may be. It's just so ingrained in the culture of Peru, the potato, that they use it for everything. And it's very sacred to Peruvians. So after these are done, we're gonna put them in our walk-in to cool down. And then from there, we will pop them in our reach-in freezer to freeze. Once they're frozen, we're able to fry them. So we will double fry them for the optimal crunch that everyone enjoys. So the oil we use here is rice bran oil. I found that it imparted a nice flavor, and it just really worked out for the fries that we make here. Some say they're the best they've ever had, and we even have people come in just for the fries. So these chickens have been on for just over an hour, and they are ready to go. As you can tell, it has a nice sheen of deliciousness on there. The skin is nice and crispy. When you touch it, like you can just feel the nice texture on it. And then just the juice in there is, it's something else, let me tell you. We're gonna pull these off right now and get them ready for service. Chicken? Yeah. Okay, it's gonna come with a salad. We probably go through around 70 chickens a week. It's been pretty consistent in that regard. So I'm gonna give it a little extra char for flavor and crispness. Give that a little smoky flavor. And then I also flip them over so I can get the skin even crispier. The community in Phoenix has really been very supportive, and we've gotten a lot of notoriety in such a small amount of time. So these are three sauces. In Bolladillas in Peru, these are like the basic sauces they're gonna have. The main sauce that they're gonna have in a chicken shop, in a Pollo a la Raza, is gonna be the yellow one. The sauces are just traditional. They're part of the experience of eating Pollo a la Raza. It just really accentuates the flavors of the chicken itself. So we get our chilies imported from Peru. It's very traditional in Peru, in the Pueyrilla, to have a jamarillo-based sauce, as well as rocoto, which is my favorite. It's a spicier chili, very fruit-forward, similar to a habanero. And we make a verde sauce, which is made with jalapenos and cilantro. We have a pretty big Peruvian population here. We were very fortunate that they came out in support when we first opened. It was just very humbling. It really reminded them of home. The vision I have for Mr. Pio is really to show the people of Phoenix the great culture that Peru really has, and the vibrancy. A lot of places put more thought into their ambiance than what they're really trying to do and showcase with the food that they're doing. For Mr. Pio, it's really the opposite. It's not anniversary night every night, right? Like, sometimes you just wanna have that execution and that quality. I just want good food. Like, when you're working with great products, you're already halfway there. Like, that's half the battle. Take something that's quality and special and just do your best not to f*** it up. Really, like, that's what it comes down to. There's been a lot of, you know, a lot of hard work and time and love put into this. It's special that people have really embraced it.