Dec. 21, 2015 By Michael Florio
A popular Manhattan Peruvian restaurant is moving to Astoria.
Warique Peruvian Restaurant, which has called the Upper West Side home for the past five years, will soon open its doors at 40-17 30th Ave.
Owner Jimmy Lozano expects to open within the next two weeks.
The restaurant, which serves authentic Peruvian cuisine, had to close at its former Amsterdam Avenue location after the lease expired and the rent was pushed up, according to Lozano.
That property’s landlord could not be reached for comment.
Lozano started to look for new locations in the Upper West Side. However, he said he quickly realized how expensive remaining in the Upper West Side would be and decided to open up in Astoria.
Lozano, who lives in Middle Village, is a big fan of the neighborhood.
“My wife and I go to Ditmars every weekend,” he said. “We really like the family feeling that Astoria has to offer.”
“It’s a very diverse and safe neighborhood,” he added.
The foot traffic that 30th Avenue can offer was a factor in choosing the new location, Lozano said, while he also expects the original location’s customers to visit the Astoria restaurant.
“They keep asking when are we going to open,” he said. “We have customers come from Long Island, Connecticut and Queens.”
He hopes to be as popular with the Astoria residents as he was in Manhattan.
“We hope they come and eat,” he said. “We think they will like it very much.”
The restaurant will have the same menu as the original location, with a heavy focus on seafood items, such as grilled fish filets, fresh shrimp soup, and Ceviche Mixto, which is raw fresh fish chunks, shrimp and calamari marinated in lime juice.
The menu will also include Peruvian style pesto pasta, Peruvian style Chinese fried rice and roasted chicken, a popular Peruvian dish, according to Lozano.
Lozano, who was born in Peru, said the restaurant will offer authentic cuisine served the same way it is in his native land.
“It is traditional, homemade food,” he said. “It is what you could eat in Peru.”
The restaurant can seat 50 people and will be open from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Thursday. It will close at 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Lozano is still deciding what time to open on weekends, as he plans on serving brunch.
Warique will also have a full bar serving wine, beer and liquor. The bar will serve Pisco, a Peruvian brandy.
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4 Comments
There is no minus rating here so one will have to do. I was so excited to order again from this restaurant so I placed the order at 9:30pm. At 10:36pm I looked at the status on Seamless which said my order was being delivered around 10:15 so i called to find out what had happened. A very rude man answered the phone and just told me your order is on the way there’s nothing I can do. At 11:10 the order showed up and the delivery guy told us how come we didn’t cancel the order. When I open the order it had been poorly packaged and to top it off they forgot to pack the rice! So I called again and that very rude man answered the phone again when I tried to explain to him why I was calling he would not let me talk and started arguing with me on the phone. I COULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT I WAS HEARING. The restaurant arguing with the customer even after they screwed up royally! This place is awful, the food was not to part, the chicken was under cook and the ceviche was trash! I would not recommend this place to my biggest enemy if I had any. What a waste of my money, DO NOT WASTE YOURS!!
peruvain food is great but sadly there are enough of them.
The problem with this spot is it’s one block to the east of the real foot traffic. Let’s hope this place is enough of a magnet to draw people past Steinway.
And … pisco sours anyone? My memories of Peru are very vague thanks to those.
I wish them luck. Restaurants never last in this spot for some reason.