There's a new family-owned restaurant in east Arlington serving a style of food that’s a real rarity in Tarrant County: Peruvian cuisine. Called Warique Peruvian Restaurant, it's now open at 3330 Matlock Rd. #128, in a strip mall space once occupied by a Pulido’s restaurant.

Warique comes from married couple Monica Lopez and Pedro Luis, first-time restaurateurs who emigrated to Arlington from Lima, Peru 18 years ago. Luis ran his own home improvement company for several years before the couple decided to try their hand at the restaurant business, opening Warique in July.

“We started out cooking for family and friends, using traditional Peruvian recipes,” Lopez says. “Everybody loved our cooking and encouraged us to open a restaurant that serves authentic Peruvian food, which is hard to find here.”

The two hired family friend Ayrton Velasquez to lead the kitchen. He, too, hails from Peru, where he worked as a chef in several restaurants, Lopez says.

Their expansive menu is made up of staples of Peruvian cuisine, including ceviche, a refreshing, cold-cooked dish made from marinated seafood.

Warique serves a half-dozen varieties of ceviche that feature mahi mahi, mussels, and shrimp, along with vegetables such as sweet potatoes. Each ceviche comes with a side of leche de tigre, a zesty sauce made from lemon juice designed to pour over the ceviche.

Another dish the restaurant specializes in is causa. Similar to a casserole, it’s comprised of layers of mashed yellow potatoes, sliced avocados and your choice of octopus, shredded chicken, or tuna, mixed with mayo. Artfully presented, the dish is drizzled in an aji amarillo sauce made with Peruvian yellow pepper paste and served with a hardboiled egg, sliced in half.

“It’s a traditional Peruvian dish that our family grew up on,” says Justin Luis, one of the owners’ sons, who also works at the restaurant. “It has a light, creamy texture but because it has potatoes in it, it’s filling.”

Other dishes include parihuela, a hearty seafood soup made with sea bass, crab meat, and various spices; mostrito, a fried rice dish served with rotisserie-style chicken, a small salad, and French fries; and lomo saltado, stir-fried beef cooked with onions and tomatoes and served with fries and white rice.

For newcomers to Peruvian fare, Justin recommends papas a la huancaina, a simple dish consisting of boiled yellow potatoes smothered in a cheese sauce.

“It looks simple, but the sauce is very complex,” he says. “For someone who hasn’t had Peruvian food, it’s a good place to start. It contains two ingredients you’ll find in a lot of traditional Peruvian food, yellow chillis and yellow potatoes. Those ingredients are the basis for a lot of our dishes.”

Justin also recommends either of the restaurant’s “ronda marina” samplers, which include small portions of fried fish, ceviche, causa and other dishes.

For an appetizer, each table receives a ramekin of dry-roasted, large-kerneled corn, called cancha, accompanied by two salsas - one mild, one spicy - for dipping.

The must-try drink is chicha morada, a sweet, non-alcholic drink made from dried purple corn, fruit and spices. In addition to regular sodas, there’s also canned Inka Cola, a Peruvian soft drink.

The restaurant has a full bar and a signature drink, a Piscos sour, a Peruvian cocktail made with pisco, lime juice, egg white, and Angostura bitters; it’s similar to a whiskey sour.

The 2,500-square-foot space is festively decorated with floor-to-ceiling, hand-painted murals depicting Peruvian culture.
On Sundays, there’s live music.

“We want it to be more than just a restaurant,” Lopez says. “We want people to come and experience Peruvian food, culture and entertainment.”