After three decades in Brazil, Margarita Sayan Pinto still speaks a charming, peppery portunhol – the Spanglish-like mix of Portuguese and Spanish – that she seems in no hurry to rid herself of. The chef remembers an interaction she had with a local taxi driver when asked to describe why she opened Rio’s first Peruvian restaurant nine years ago. “Peru?” the driver said. “That’s the only country in South America that doesn’t border Brazil.” (Peru indeed has a 1,860-mile border with Brazil. Ecuador and Chile are the only South American nations that do not touch Brazil.)
“I observed that people really did not know much about Peru. It worried me. I thought it was my duty to pass on a familiarity with my country and its traditions to them,” said Pinto, who founded Intihuasi (Quechua for “House of Sun”) and employs her Brazilian-Peruvian children there.
Since Pinto’s Intihuasi, at least two other restaurants serving Peruvian cuisine have opened in Rio, including Lima Restobar and La Carioca.
The lack of international options in Rio’s gastronomical scene is a repeated woe amongst expats. Americans complain about Rio’s scant Mexican offerings and Brits about the all-but-nonexistent Indian cuisine. Despite the extensive and numerous borders, you’ll have a far easier time finding an Italian bistro than Colombian or Venezuelan-style arepas or an Argentine medialuna. (The French version of the latter – the croissant – is readily available, however.) Some have attributed an inward-looking tendency in Brazil to its more than two decades under military dictatorship, which ended in 1985, as well as to its subcontinental size and linguistic isolation within Latin America. Pinto also says that Brazilians largely look to the U.S. and Europe for their cultural references.
“For reasons that have to do with colonization, Brazilians go much more to Europe than to the rest of Latin America,” she says.
Those who promote a more pan-Latin American identity can take encouragement, though, from the fact that Pinto’s Intihuasi is bombando (slang for having a lot of success). Pinto serves traditional Peruvian dishes, like the cebiche tradicional de lenguado (flounder marinated with lime, peppers and red onion, served also with sweet potatoes and Peruvian corn), as well as more inventive preparations, like the tabule de quinoa, a nod to the Arab dish with the most beloved Andean ingredient. We suggest the camarones com mel de naranja, fried and battered shrimp with an orange and honey sauce, and the canchitas con chifles, nicely chewy big corn kernels with plantain chips. Her dessert list is among Rio’s most unique and includes suspiro de limeña, dulce de leche with a light meringue and port, and mazamorra morada, a purple corn crème.
Such is Pinto’s steadfastness to Peruvian ingredients that she established a small fazenda (farm) in Rio’s região serrana, a hilly region about two hours from the city, to recreate, to the degree possible, an Andean climate.
We are wary of the expat tendency to think that the extent to which we’re able to blend in with locals is somehow proportional to how much we belong in our adopted homes. So what if we speak Portuguese with an accent? If we do the “Thriller” zombie dance better than samba? A place like the U.S. is all the richer for its immigrant cultures, sounds, cuisines and customs. A place like Rio benefits from someone like Pinto, who is in no rush to shed what makes her Peruvian. Gringos can take a cue from her.
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